


Island Fever

by autotunedd



Series: Inje [3]
Category: Big Bang (Band), GTOP (Band)
Genre: M/M, Sickness, big conversations, but a happy ending starts to form here, jiyong starts to make some realisations, some good and some bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-03-26 12:38:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19005967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autotunedd/pseuds/autotunedd
Summary: Big things are set in motion and Jiyong begins to plot his future.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, It's been impossible to write anything this year. As we all know, this year has been an absolute garbage fire of stress in bigbang land. I'm not sure how many people are hanging around still, but if you read this and have any interest in this series being finished, I would truly appreciate a kudos or comment to let me know. Thank-you xox

  
  
Jiyong scrolls through the photos with a smile on his face, unconsciously grinning here and there. Youngbae sent pictures of the baby shower to his phone and Jiyong has spent ten minutes cycling through them. His favourite photo is a close-up shot of a small pair of baby shoes. He feels a pang in his heart, tracing the Velcro straps with his fingers. It will be a while before the baby can wear shoes so it’s a pointless gift, whoever gave it to them, but at the same time it’s sentimental and more than anything else in the photographs including Hyorin’s pregnancy belly, these little shoes say _baby!_ _  
  
_In the pit of Jiyong’s stomach there’s a seed of jealousy still. For fifteen years, the longest running joke between he and Youngbae was that _he_ would be the first one married. He would be the first to have kids. More than any of them, he spoke about those things the most. Youngbae would tease him for being sentimental and too romantic and once liked a compilation video on Instagram of all the times he’d mentioned his future family in interviews. To the world, G-Dragon was desperate to find a wife. He had been talking about it in their earliest TV appearances. His younger self from 2007 proudly sat in a restaurant during _Guerilla Date_ and talked optimistically about his future.  
  
When he started dating Seunghyun and when things became serious, the tender feelings about marriage and kids didn’t disappear. They were just pushed aside, packed away in a sealed box in the back of his head because to have _that_ dream meant saying goodbye to Seunghyun and he couldn’t do that. It was implicitly understood that he could have a family and children or he could have Seunghyun, but he couldn’t have both. And for a while that was okay. It had to be okay. While the rest of his friends dated and broke-up and dated and broke-up, he was happy with his life with Seunghyun. They were secure when everyone else was still figuring things out.  
  
Of course, it started to get harder when friends started getting married, when friends became pregnant, when his social media feeds started filling up with babies and then toddlers and then emotional posts about the first day of school. Seunghyun found it equally grating and upsetting, so at some point they quietly muted the people posting pictures of their happy nuclear families. Jiyong stopped musing about kids early on in their relationship because to do anything else was too confronting. As a result, he and Seunghyun have never talked about having kids because it isn’t possible and probably never will be. Even if they were on the same page, they aren’t allowed to marry each other let alone adopt. When the laws finally change on the former, how many more years for the latter? He could be fifty by the time laws are passed to accommodate them.  
  
So, babies have been the subject of a conversation ban in this house and _all_ their other houses. Hyorin’s pregnancy and Youngbae’s constant updates have been a source of vicarious joy, but also pain. But Jiyong is getting better at suppressing the pain because Youngbae deserves his happiness more than anyone. They have been friends too long for him not to live vicariously through Youngbae’s joys.  
  
Youngbae will be an amazing, attentive, loving, unfunny father. Those are facts. Jiyong feels real pride listening to him talk excitedly about the future. So, maybe he can’t ever have what Youngbae has but being there for Youngbae and his family is the next best thing. He might never be a father but thanks to Youngbae he’ll be a godparent, and he'll cherish that. He’ll be the best fucking godfather the planet has ever seen.  
  
‘Fuck, why are baby shoes so cute?’ Seunghyun laments, looking over Jiyong’s shoulder at the photo on his phone. ‘I want to _eat_ them’.  
  
‘I know,’ Jiyong croons.  
  
Seunghyun has been similarly happy for Youngbae’s impending family and has purchased the equivalent of six toy stores to prove it. For weeks, as the due date has drawn closer, he has been coming home with bags full of toys. The wine cellar is positively at breaking point, crammed with toys wall to wall. His excuse being, ‘we’ll be the best fucking uncles _ever._ The kid will like us more than his parents’.  
  
Seunghyun climbs over the back of the lounge now and sits beside him. Jiyong passes his phone over and Seunghyun scrolls through the pictures himself. They only know three people at the baby shower: Hyorin, her mother and Youngbae’s mother, so there are a lot of unknown faces but it’s nice to look anyway. The soon-to-be parents have been so busy over the last few weeks, Jiyong has barely seen them. He and Seunghyun have been once or twice but things are hectic and his presence was often an impediment. Jiyong knows he’ll be more use to them after the baby is born, so he takes it in stride. He’ll see more of Youngbae afterwards than he has in months. Noone is turning down free babysitting from a trustworthy godparent.  
  
Jiyong turns his head and rests his cheek on the back of the couch, watching Seunghyun’s involuntary smiles as he scrolls through the photos. Sometimes, he wants to have that conversation about children with him. Seunghyun has always had a special connection with his nephew; a changed man when they spend time together. He still travels to Seoul once a fortnight to spend time with his sister’s family. He obviously likes kids. But what good would it do to find out Seunghyun has dreams too that can never be fulfilled? With most things, Jiyong likes talking his problems out. He feels better after they open up to each other, but he finds he can’t do it with this one. It’s too hard.  
  
Seunghyun’s expression slowly morphs over time as he makes it to the end of the photo reel, and he looks a little despondent. Maybe they both have that seed of misery in the pit of their stomachs after all.  
  
‘You okay?’  
  
‘Yeah,’ Seunghyun answers. ‘It looks like a nice shower. Good turn-out’.  
  
‘So what’s with the face?’  
  
Seunghyun goes through the motions of preparing to lie and shake it off, then he changes his mind, re-makes it and changes it again until he shrugs in a quiet fit of desperation and says something glib instead.  
  
‘I think I’m jealous’.  
  
Jiyong’s heart quickens for a moment.  
  
‘Of what? You want your own shower?’ he asks in jest. ‘You want a baby?’  
  
He says it so casually, he regrets it immediately, but it doesn’t matter because Seunghyun shakes his head in the negative.  
  
‘It’s not that,’ he says, holding the phone between them. ‘There were thirty people at this shower to celebrate,’ he explains. ‘ _Thirty people_ to share in this big moment. I’m jealous of that.’  
  
Jiyong barely has time to wonder what Seunghyun means by that before he fills in the blanks, continuing like this is something he has held in for a long time.  
  
‘I get lonely sometimes,’ Seunghyun confesses. ‘Not because you’re not enough but because I can’t talk about my life. Hyorin and Youngbae have their families and thirty friends on call to attend a baby shower,’ he says pointedly. ‘You have your family to call on. What do I have? I don’t have that. I can’t talk about our life together--- _my life_ ,’ he stresses, ‘with anyone but you. It’s getting harder to cope with that. Everything my parents know about me is a lie,’ he says. ‘When I talk to them, I can’t tell them anything real. Friends either. When will I have thirty people in a room to celebrate a big moment of my life with you? Or even one person?’  
  
His words come out in a torrent and take Jiyong by surprise. A minute of silence passes before he can catch up. Moments ago, they were cooing over baby shoes. Now, Seunghyun is confessing he’s lonely?  
  
They’ve both expressed similar sentiments before but maybe he hasn’t given enough thought to the difference between them now. Until this year, they were in the same boat, completely isolated and cut off from the people they love because of this monumental secret. Telling his family changed things. It made his side of their desert island larger while Seunghyun’s has remained the same. He knows Seunghyun and Dami text each other on a daily basis, newfound friends, but that’s not the same as talking to your _own_ people. Seunghyun can’t talk to his family about his life at home. He can only talk about work and lie about the rest. Jiyong stammers over his words.  
  
‘I didn’t know you felt like that’.  
  
‘I don’t all the time,’ Seunghyun answers. ‘Most of the time, I don’t think about it but sometimes things happen and I’m reminded. It flares up,’ he says, flipping the phone in his hand. ‘I’m happy for Youngbae. I’m looking forward to being there for his family. But there are times when it reminds me of petty shit I feel about my own life’.  
  
Seunghyun drops his head back and stares at the ceiling with a heavy sigh, suggesting he must be a terrible prick.  
  
‘It’s okay to feel like that,’ Jiyong answers tentatively, thinking about his own thoughts. ‘Isn’t it? You can’t punish yourself for having feelings’.  
_  
_ ‘Even bad ones?’  
  
Seunghyun drops Jiyong’s phone on the cushion between them and pulls his own phone from his back pocket. For a minute, he types quietly to himself and Jiyong racks his brain trying to think what to say next. How to fix this. How to come up with some solution to Seunghyun’s confessed loneliness. He feels panic dragging its way up his body.  
  
‘Nice baby shower,’ Seunghyun mutters to himself, reading the text he has just written. ‘You looked great at the shower. Fatherhood looks good on you. You seem taller. _Send’.  
_  
‘Are you sending that to Youngbae? He wasn’t at the shower’.  
  
Seunghyun passes his phone across and Jiyong sees a pixelly cropped cut of one photo. There are balloons on the ground with stickers of Youngbae’s face on them. One of them has been shoved into a onesie. It looks like a ludicrous, distorted version of him. It’s actually pretty funny. Seunghyun attached it to his text message.  
  
‘Does this make you feel better?’ Jiyong asks.  
  
‘A little bit,’ Seunghyun smiles.  
  
Jiyong sniggers in spite of himself. Youngbae and Seunghyun have been sending each other increasingly stupid memes and messages to each other as Youngbae’s brain has slowly cracked from stress. They’re a bad influence on each other now.  
  
Seunghyun stands suddenly and makes an announcement.  
  
‘I’m going to sit in the greenhouse’.  
  
Jiyong sighs, knowing full well that’s Seunghyun’s spot for miserable reflections. He’s just said something that’s kind of a big deal and now he wants to be alone and marinate in it instead of talking about it.  
  
‘If you go, I’ll follow you. We need to talk about what you just said’.  
  
‘The balloon thing?’ Seunghyun asks, faking obtuseness.  
  
‘No, about you being _miserable_ here’.  
  
Seunghyun sighs and groans, frustrated, skirting the coffee table so he can head to the greenhouse.  
  
‘That’s not what I said’.  
  
Jiyong follows him until they are sitting side by side on the bench in Seunghyun’s greenhouse. It’s incredibly cold. The woods around them are blanketed in snow. It’s unseasonably cold. Global warming perhaps. The seasons have gone haywire. The depths of winter have come weeks too early. It’s still autumn.  
  
‘Do you want to go home?’ Jiyong asks, burying his hands in his pockets. It’s not freezing in the greenhouse but it’s still too cold.  
  
Seunghyun groans in answer.  
  
‘No. This _is_ home. I like it here. I don’t want to leave. It just feels like there’s something missing sometimes.’  
  
Seunghyun’s childish grunts of frustration and the way he’s so easily talking about his feelings signal that he’s been drinking. A glass or two with lunch maybe. Not enough to be drunk, but enough to talk about serious things in this offhand way  
  
‘Maybe it’s time to tell someone,’ Jiyong says simply.  
  
‘Tell them what?’  
  
‘About yourself. Maybe it’s time to tell your family that you’re gay’.  
  
Seunghyun winces and then laughs. He rolls the back of his head over the greenhouse wall behind him, turning his neck so they’re facing each other.  
  
‘I don’t think so’.  
  
‘Why not?’ Jiyong presses. ‘If you want to talk about your life, you have to _talk about your life_. You have to tell someone the truth.’  
  
They’ve never really talked about Seunghyun coming out to his family. Seunghyun talks about his parents sometimes but Jiyong knows less about them and his relationship with them than Seunghyun does about he and his. Seunghyun has never been that forthcoming about his reasons for keeping quiet all these years.  
  
‘You were afraid to tell your parents you were into men because you were scared they wouldn’t love you anymore,’ Seunghyun says simply. ‘That’s what you told me. That things would never be the same’.  
  
‘Yeah’.  
  
‘You were afraid,’ Seunghyun says carefully. ‘I know that. But did you really believe it would turn out that way? Truthfully. Deep down in your gut, did you _really_ think they wouldn’t love you anymore?’  
  
Jiyong opens his mouth to say yes but stops himself. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe that was something he told himself to excuse his cowardice, because he was afraid of hurting them and them hurting him. Telling his mother was the worst moment of his life. The fear and uncertainty tore him to pieces. That was real. But, staring down the barrel of Seunghyun’s question, he knows that if he sincerely thought being honest would take his family away _forever_ , he never would have told them.  
  
‘No,’ he answers honestly. ‘Deep down, I knew they would still love me. I did think it would change things. That it would be difficult for a few years but not forever. I thought, if they gave me a chance I could make it okay for them’.  
  
Seunghyun smiles knowingly.  
  
‘You don’t have that feeling?’ Jiyong asks tenderly.  
  
Seunghyun shakes his head and shrugs.  
  
‘I don’t know,’ he says, correcting a moment later. _‘No._ I mean, I think I’d be a more miserable person if I really believed they wouldn’t love me anymore.’  
  
‘So, what’s the problem?’  
  
Seunghyun shrugs again.  
  
‘Maybe, I just don’t want the inconvenience. I don’t want the temporary nightmare that telling them would create. I’d rather not do it’.  
  
‘Even if life was better in the long term?’ Jiyong asks. ‘Don’t you fantasize about telling them?’  
  
For years, Jiyong felt comfortable with the idea of never telling his family, but he still thought about it. Gaps would open up in their conversations and he would confess in his mind, filling the silence with inner monologue he was too afraid to say aloud. At family dinners and on birthdays he would imagine an extra place at the table. He would fold his hands in his lap and imagine they were Seunghyun’s fingers on his knee. He thought about telling his family a million times over before he actually did. Thinking about those situations brought some consolation. If he could imagine them in his mind, that meant they were possible. It made coming out possible later on. Doesn’t Seunghyun have those fantasies? The prelude to?  
  
Seunghyun shrugs in the negative.  
  
‘I’ve really never thought about it. I’m closer to forty than thirty now. It feels like I’ve missed the boat,’ he says, flippant. ‘Maybe I’ll keep my identity a secret until everyone dies. Like Superman’.  
  
‘Seunghyun, this is crazy. If you’re lonely and desperate for people to _know_ you, for people to talk to that aren’t _me_ , you have to tell someone who you are. If not your parents, then someone else’.  
  
‘Who?’ Seunghyun asks pragmatically. ‘My parents might not want to hear it but they won’t call the press one day when they’re short of money’.  
  
‘Some of your friends?’ Jiyong suggests. ‘Ones who live overseas and are famous in their own right and wouldn’t give a shit about the cheque dispatch would cut to expose you? Don’t you know a married gay couple? Those European artists? I know you have gay friends. Are none of those a safe option?’  
  
Seunghyun shrugs.  
  
‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘But do I want the first time I come out to be to be in broken English to a casual acquaintance?’  
  
‘Maybe it’s easier to start small,’ Jiyong answers, ‘when the stakes aren’t so high’.  
  
‘ _Maybe,_ ’ Seunghyun answers coolly. ‘ _Maybe_ I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I just want to sit in my greenhouse alone. Is that okay?’  
  
Jiyong moves to protest but feels a wave of frustration and changes his mind. He only returns a minute later to throw Seunghyun a coat, then he leaves him to it.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

For the rest of the day, Jiyong feels a pit of stress growing in his stomach. Things have been good lately. Things have always been good since moving here, but Seunghyun’s job has been going really well. He has picked things up faster than expected. Small changes he’s made have increased public engagement with the gallery and he’s acquired some pretty big pieces for a joint outside the city. He’s been enjoying his life here. He’s started talking about owning his own gallery in the future, like this job has put him on the right path. Like he knows what he wants to do with the rest of his life. And not just Art, but music too—because he’s been in and out of the home studio that Jiyong had left mostly alone.  
  
Seunghyun has been working on bits and pieces as he feels like it. A few times, he has roped Jiyong into recording things too. It’s not a mixtape ready for the world, but it’s a start. They are steps in the right direction. The vacation has been slowly tapering off and they’ve been stumbling towards putting a future together.  
  
Jiyong has been painting and selling bits and pieces at the market, as well as putting larger pieces online through an art dealership. One of his paintings was sold for an okay amount of money. That made him feel legitimate. That made him feel more open to other things, like stepping into the studio with Seunghyun. He has started writing again. Not a lot, but it feels like a natural beginning. No pressure. Nothing forced. His creativity is slowly waking up again and he feels brand new. Life has been _good_.  
  
And now Seunghyun says he’s lonely.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

  
They don’t see each other again until it’s almost midnight. Jiyong gets into bed first and turns the light off, unsure if Seunghyun plans on joining him or not. He hasn’t seen him. Seunghyun has spent hours sitting in the greenhouse and then the cellar when it grew dark outside. He has been a man unto himself. Probably drinking.  
  
When Seunghyun finally does come into the bedroom, he heads straight for the ensuite and takes a hot shower. Jiyong watches steam emerge from beneath the door and wonders if Seunghyun’s attitude has unthawed along with his body.  
  
When Seunghyun does get into bed, he is naked and warm and Jiyong moves closer to him instinctively. Seunghyun rolls onto his stomach, cheek flat against the pillow.  
  
‘I thought you were sleeping,’ he mumbles.  
  
‘No.’  
  
Silence grows between them until Seunghyun breaks it again, voice penitent and quiet.  
  
‘Sorry. I didn’t know I felt those things until I blurted them out. I guess I wasn’t ready for a big conversation. I just wanted to think.’  
  
‘Do you want to talk now?’  
  
‘No’.  
  
‘Alright’.  
  
Jiyong rolls onto his side so he can lay his hand over Seunghyun’s. He doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t need to. _I love you_ is implied. He just maintains that connection between them.  
  
In time, Seunghyun closes some of the distance between them until they are almost on top of each other. He buries his face in Jiyong’s hand and sighs heavily at the touch, planting a gentle kiss to the side of his little finger. It’s uncharacteristically gentle and needy and it wakes Jiyong up for how unusual it is. Seunghyun is tense. He has too much bottled up inside him now, he doesn’t know how to release it. He is tired and frustrated.  
  
_‘Jiyong, can you—'_  
  
Seunghyun pulls his hand out from beneath Jiyong’s fingers and reverses them. He takes Jiyong’s hand instead, slowly dragging it down the sheets between them, guiding him to his own bare skin. This is clue enough but the rest of the pieces fall into place and Jiyong understands what Seunghyun needs. He rolls over and plants a gentle kiss on Seunghyun’s shoulder.  
  
‘I’ve got you’.  
  
Seunghyun releases a grateful sigh and Jiyong is happy to help if this will do it. It sometimes does. He knows how it goes. Sometimes you want to fuck because you’re happy. Sometimes you want to fuck because you’re not. Sometimes you need someone to take care of you. And that’s what he does for Seunghyun now.  
  
He takes his time preparing him. He warms the lube in his hands before touching him. With his fingers inside, he works him slowly with ease. Seunghyun is usually impatient, but tonight he lets things happen at a leisurely pace. His body responds like a taut spring slowly unfurling.  
  
Seunghyun likes being fucked but they don’t do it as often as Jiyong would like. He enjoys doing this for Seunghyun. He likes massaging out his stress and his knots. He likes the way Seunghyun’s body responds to him. He likes the way he feels and looks and sounds. Even tonight, when Seunghyun’s mind is a thousand miles away, Jiyong likes knowing he can bring him back.  
  
When he enters Seunghyun slowly, he is surprised by the heat and how good it feels. It’s been a while since they’ve done this and Seunghyun groans into his pillow, probably thinking the same. Even after slow and careful prep he is tight because he’s tense but Jiyong is careful with him. He knows that’s what Seunghyun needs, so he doesn’t fuck him. He makes love to him. He is slow and attentive. He feels and hears Seunghyun’s cues and acts accordingly.  
  
Seunghyun’s sporadic groans casually turn into sighs of relief. He seems to enjoy himself best when Jiyong is almost flat on top of him, close enough to almost kiss his shoulder blades, so Jiyong adjusts his position. He makes sure Seunghyun can feel the heat of his breath on his back and he fucks into him deep and slow, maintaining an impossible level of control. Maintaining as much physical contact as possible. It is hard not to go faster, but he knows what Seunghyun needs and it’s nice how steadily he is coming back from that negative place in his head. Seunghyun is responding well to slow and steady because he needs the attention tonight.  
  
In time, Seunghyun’s non-verbal cues become verbal and he is more himself. He says what he wants and Jiyong obliges. He becomes aware of his own situation too, getting closer to the edge as the minutes tick by. He won’t last much longer. He tries to stave it off by thinking about other things. Baby shoes. The dying flowers in the kitchen. The coin he found behind the couch cushions yesterday. Thankfully, Seunghyun saves him in the nick of time. He breathes heavily into his pillow.  
  
_‘I’m going to cum soon’._  
  
‘Do you want to roll over?’  
  
_‘Yeah’._  
  
Jiyong pulls out and rests on his heels while Seunghyun wearily rolls onto his back. He enjoys laying on his stomach but Seunghyun always rolls over to cum. He can jerk off easier that way and they like seeing each other. Jiyong finds the original position easy, but it’s less personal than when he bottoms himself. He _likes_ missionary when he bottoms. He likes that intimacy. So, he likes this part. He likes when Seunghyun turns around and he can fuck him properly, even if it’s not for long.  
  
He scoots closer until he hits the backs of Seunghyun’s thighs. He lifts Seunghyun’s legs and re-positions himself, entering him again with less control than before because they’re both close. Seunghyun sighs and it’s unmistakably of _relief_. He puts one hand behind his head and the other between his legs and he touches himself. The sight of it makes Jiyong spin out. It undoes him faster. He barely lasts thirty seconds then cums inside him, wondering as he does it if he should have asked first. He grunts louder than he means to as it hits him hard. It feels fantastic.  
  
He tries to ride it out and keep going, feeling over-sensitised. He manages to fuck Seunghyun for the extra minute it takes him to cum and it’s worth it to watch him unwind. To watch Seunghyun’s head thrown back and his neck taut. To watch his stomach and thighs tighten. To watch the way he trembles slightly when his orgasm hits. To hear the little sound he makes of desperation, of completely letting go. It’s weirdly beautiful when Seunghyun cums. It never seems messy or ugly. He manages to look handsome and graceful and when he finishes, he always has this beautiful relaxed smile on his face.  
  
Jiyong leans down and kisses him.  
  
‘I love you’.  
  
‘I love you,’ Seunghyun answers. ‘ _Thank-you_ ’.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

For a few days afterwards, they don’t talk about Seunghyun’s confession. Jiyong tries not to think about it, but it’s hard. From the moment _it_ was released into the house, Jiyong has felt a knot of anxiety in his stomach. He doesn’t know how to fix things. He doesn’t know how to give them the perfect life he wants them to have. Seunghyun seems to go quickly back to normal. He goes to work in a decent mood and comes home with the same, or he spends all day in his office and they have lunch together and talk about nothing. Regular stuff.  
  
It’s almost a week later when he comes down the stairs with a strange look on his face. He pauses at the bottom of the staircase, dazed, and Jiyong pauses with his coffee halfway to his mouth.  
  
‘What is it?’  
  
Seunghyun seems to snap out of his trance.  
  
‘I just talked to Jung-jin. A friend of mine. He lives in Paris. He called me out of the blue. He wants me to go see him’.  
  
‘What for?’  
  
‘Art stuff’.  
  
‘Art stuff,’ Jiyong repeats slowly. ‘ _Okay_. Are you going to go?’  
  
Seunghyun hesitates but when he does answer, he sounds resolute.  
  
‘Yeah. And--- I think I’m going to tell him about me’.  
  
Jiyong puts his coffee down on the bench abruptly, wondering if he’s misunderstood.  
  
‘Tell him you’re _gay?’_  
  
‘Yeah,’ Seunghyun answers. ‘He’s Korean but he’s spent most of his life in Europe. We have mutual friends who are gay and he has good relationships with them. He’s been my friend for ten years but not close enough that it would ruin my life if we weren’t friends anymore, you know? Maybe you were right. Maybe I need to start smaller than my family and tell someone else, with stakes that are less high. Maybe he called me today for a reason. Divine providence or something. I think he’s my test run’.  
  
Jiyong lets out a lengthy exhale and shakes his head in disbelief.  
  
‘Wow. Okay. I um---’  
  
He immediately starts thinking of the reality of telling someone outside their _blood_ about who they are. He encouraged Seunghyun to do it to mitigate his sense of loneliness, but now that he’s thinking about it, Jiyong can’t help worrying about the endless things that could go wrong.  
  
‘Wow, I’m kind of panicking now that I think about it,’ Jiyong breathes. ‘But okay. No, this is good. Right? This is a big deal. This is … _big’_.  
  
Seunghyun shrugs sympathetically.  
  
‘Yeah’.  
  
Jiyong tries to shake off his new worries, shoving them into an already bursting box in the back of his mind. He moves to Seunghyun and squeezes his hand in solidarity. Even if things go horribly wrong, they have to hope for the best in the meantime. He has to be optimistic. He has to believe good things will happen.  
  
‘This is a big step,’ he tells Seunghyun. ‘If you want to do this, I’m with you. This is a good thing. A good good thing’.  
  
‘Maybe’.  
  
‘When does he want you?’  
  
‘Next week’.  
  
Jiyong smiles through his exacerbated stress and tries to think through this, to a future where Seunghyun has a friend that knows who he really is. He thinks about how necessary it is. How completely vital it is for Seunghyun’s sanity to have someone he can call who isn’t his partner and _his_ family. This will be okay. This will be a good thing. Nothing bad will happen. He says it over and over in his mind like a mantra. He wills it into existence.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

Approximately seven hours after Seunghyun buys his plane tickets, his friend cancels. Seunghyun wanders into the kitchen where Jiyong is standing in the open fridge, his mouth full of stolen food.  
  
‘The trip is off’.  
  
Jiyong swallows the scoop of rice down and hurts his throat in the process.  
  
‘What? Why?’  
  
Seunghyun shrugs and cites a change of plans, then drops the bombshell that his friend is travelling to Seoul instead. On top of that, he doesn’t want to meet him in the city. He wants to invite him here instead, to this house they share together in the middle of nowhere.  
  
‘I haven’t asked him yet. I wanted to talk to you first. What do you think?’  
  
‘Why here?’  
  
‘Because this is my home,’ Seunghyun answers uncertain. ‘This is where I feel comfortable at the moment. This is where all my work is. This is where the gallery is. It’s where you are. If something goes wrong, it would be nice to have you close by’.  
  
Jiyong is touched by that and already running through a thousand difference scenarios in his mind. They need plans and contingencies. They need a schedule.  
  
‘So, you’re definitely telling him?’  
  
‘I hope so’.  
  
‘And if you do, do you want to include me in your confession?’  
  
Seunghyun’s brow furrows like he hadn’t considered this a separate part of his big reveal.  
  
‘How would you feel about that?’  
  
Jiyong lets out a shaky breath in answer, expelling some of his stress. Seunghyun has trusted him with so much. He has to do the same.  
  
‘If that’s what you want to do, it’s okay,’ Jiyong answers. ‘If you trust him not to expose us,  then you can tell him about us. It’s fine. But if you want to invite him here to our house, we need to figure something out until you do tell him. Or if you change your mind later, we need to iron out some of the kinks in this plan’.  
  
‘Like what?’  
  
‘Like you want him to stay in the house? If he’s going to stay here, what’s the excuse for _me_ being here until you have the big conversation? Will you tell him this is your home? An Airbnb? Do you want me to be here or should I stay somewhere else for a few days? We’ll have to guest-proof the house and take some pictures down. When is he coming?’  
  
‘Friday’.  
  
‘Five days? Jesus. Okay’.  
  
Seunghyun lays his hands on Jiyong’s shoulders and grips him tightly.  
  
‘Relax.’

 

 

* * * *

 

 

Ultimately, it’s impossible for Jiyong to relax. Seunghyun extends the invitation to his friend and he accepts. Flights are booked, plans are made and they are put on the path of no return. Once he has made the decision in his mind, Seunghyun’s mood changes. He seems a little more carefree and optimistic. He isn’t sweating the small stuff. In his head is the _one big conversation_ and everything else is greyed out.  
  
This leaves Jiyong to worry for the both of them. He doesn’t _want_ to. This is the outcome he wanted when Seunghyun confessed he was lonely. Still, he worries. He throws himself into de-coupling the house. He takes down all the pictures of himself and the two of them together. He hides mementos of their relationship. He tries to make this the house of a single man. If Seunghyun backs out and can’t tell his friend, he wants that to be okay. He needs the house to be unsuspicious so Seunghyun doesn’t feel pressured. He doesn’t want him to do anything he isn’t ready for. It’s strange. When he has divested all evidence of himself from the main parts of the house, it feels like a different place. Like not even Seunghyun lives here.    
  
‘Wow, this house kind of sucks without you in it,’ Seunghyun observes at the end of a long day. They lay together on the couch with their feet intertwined and Seunghyun takes in the changes. All the missing pieces. All the lost warmth.  
  
‘Yeah. I’m not crazy about it’.  
  
‘I’ll just have to tell him on the first day,’ Seunghyun says, ‘so we can put everything back where it belongs’.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

Over the next forty-eight hours, Jiyong hardly sees Seunghyun. He wants to take a few days off when his friend arrives, so Seunghyun does as much work for the gallery as possible in advance so he doesn’t fall behind. Jiyong takes lunch into the study for him but Seunghyun rarely eats it. Sometimes, he takes a bite or two and then he’s out the door on some errand. Jiyong leaves him to it mostly, trusting that he can feed himself.  
  
At the end of the second day, he notices snow begin to fall. Since their first conversation, it has snowed and melted and now it is snowing again. Winter is still two weeks off. It absolutely _shouldn’t_ be snowing. Suddenly, he feels a conflicting thought. Maybe the weather will affect Seunghyun’s plans. Does he want them to? He doesn’t know. He feels such a ball of stress inside but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t think Seunghyun’s plans are going to end in disaster. He genuinely thinks it will be okay. Opening up to this friend will be good for him in the long run. So, where is this feeling coming from? This growing panic?  
  
Jiyong spends the morning watching the weather channel. He shovels snacks into his face while listening to meteorologists explain this bizarre weather phenomenon in terms he doesn’t understand even with graphs a toddler should understand. Basically, winter has come early because of some squiggly lines over some water somewhere. They’re predicting heavy snowfall for a few days. When Seunghyun comes home from some errands, Jiyong lets him know. Maybe the snow _will_ affect his plans.  
  
‘I’m sure it will be fine’.  
  
‘Mrs. Lee told me the road down there,’ Jiyong says, gesturing vaguely North, ‘gets blocked sometimes from snowfall. Because of the little dip. Sometimes you can’t get through’.  
  
Seunghyun purses his lips for a minute and then shrugs, cavalier as ever.  
  
‘It will work out’.  
  
He seems in an okay mood but he looks tired. He has overworked himself over the last few days and still has a list of things to get through.  
  
‘You should take a nap,’ Jiyong suggests.  
  
‘I’m fine’.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

The next day, Jiyong wakes up to a whiter world. It has snowed through the night. He can still see chunks of road but if it doesn’t let up, who knows? Seunghyun’s friend will arrive in two days. He recalls his own to-do list. If it’s going to snow for a few days, he has to make sure they have supplies. They need food and water. He has to check the gas bottles downstairs in case the power goes out. He needs to check the generator. He has to check on Mrs. Lee to make sure she has everything. He suddenly feels a flash of gratitude that he got her roof fixed weeks ago. He didn’t want to put her out too much so he hired enough people to slap a new roof on her house in two days. At the time, he set someone to work checking the rest of the house too and was consoled that the place wouldn’t fall down in a strong wind. His fears months earlier of her dying in a snow related roof collapse are unlikely to happen now. Still, he has to check in.  
  
So, he crawls out of bed, unsurprised to find Seunghyun already gone, and he starts on his list. First, he eats. Then, he pulls the sheets off the guest bed downstairs and puts on fresh ones. He flips on the robot vacuum and dusts the fan. The least he can do is make sure Seunghyun’s friend doesn’t breathe in a metric tonne of dust. Seunghyun comes in when Jiyong is taking a break, resting on the end of the bed. Climbing on furniture to reach the ceiling has worn him out.  
  
‘The weather warning is now _severe_ ,’ Seunghyun says.  
  
‘What does that mean?’  
  
‘The usual I suppose. Stay indoors, et cetera. I spoke to Jung-jin. He’ll try to drive down if he can. If he can’t, he’ll stay in a motel until the snow clears. He can’t get an earlier flight. I was going to drive to Seoul to pick him up but I don’t want to leave you here alone in case something happens’.  
  
‘That’s sweet,’ Jiyong says, touching his heart. ‘You’ll put your friend in jeopardy instead?’  
  
‘It’s heavy snowfall, that’s all. It might be hard to drive for a few days. I would rather get trapped here with you, than not be able to get home. Plus he’s European-ish. He ski’s. I already warned him’.  
  
‘This feels wildly unsafe, but okay’.  
  
Seunghyun smiles but he still looks tired. Jiyong pulls him in by the bottom of his sweater.  
  
‘Are you okay? You look tired. When did you get up this-morning?’  
  
‘Five?’  
  
‘Seunghyun, give it a rest. That’s too early! I’m missing our morning cuddles too. It’s freezing. I need your body heat’.  
  
‘Yeah?’  
  
‘Yeah,’ Jiyong answers obstinately, smiling into the kiss Seunghyun bends down to plant on his lips. ‘So stop being selfish and _stay in bed_ with me’.  
  
‘Right now?’ Seunghyun asks, pushing Jiyong back onto the sheets.  
  
Jiyong crawls backwards up the mattress so they have more room. When Seunghyun lies down on top of him, Jiyong can’t help lifting his hips to meet him. He hasn’t felt Seunghyun’s body against his in a while. Not like this, not with Seunghyun on top of him. So, for a while he lets his to-do list fall to the wayside and they make out like teenagers. Their hands roam. Maybe it starts to go a little further. Maybe Seunghyun unbuttons Jiyong’s pants. Maybe Jiyong slides a few fingers beneath the waistband of Seunghyun’s briefs to grab his ass. He breaks the kiss so he can speak.  
  
‘You want us to have sex on the bed your friend will be sleeping in?’  
  
Seunghyun grimaces, considering the fact. He kisses Jiyong again and then props himself up on his elbows.  
  
‘Your parents slept in here when they stayed. They probably had sex in this bed too’.  
  
Jiyong has a knee-jerk reaction and pushes on Seunghyun’s chest in remorse.  
  
‘No. Get off. No. No. No.’  
  
Seunghyun rolls off and smiles as Jiyong straightens himself out. He does his pants back up and straightens his shirt and hair.  
  
‘I have things to do anyway,’ he says, wishing he hadn’t said anything. ‘I have to go the store and buy groceries and get supplies. And I have to check in on Mrs. Lee. If there’s going to be heavy snowfall, I want to make sure she’s okay and has everything she needs. I’ll probably be gone a few hours.’  
  
‘Okay’.  
  
Jiyong bends over and kisses him.  
  
‘Do you need anything?’  
  
‘Um—you know me,’ Seunghyun answers wearily. ‘Buy all the responsible stuff and then buy us some food. Entertaining type stuff. You know what I like. Stuff for guests, and some meat. There’s enough wine and other drinks in the cellar. We just need food’.  
  
‘Okay. I might have to go into the city to get it all. I’ll text you if I’m going to be late’.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

It takes Jiyong hours longer than he expected. He is gone for most of the day. He tried buying a few things in town and then gave up as things were out of stock thanks to people panic buying supplies. He eventually gives up and drives to Seoul. It takes an hour longer than usual because of the snow in Inje. He drives slower than he normally would. So, he gets home almost nine hours after he left with gas bottles, a cooking stove just in case, a bunch of other random supplies in case of an emergency greater than snow. And enough food for twenty people. He took an extra thirty minutes to drop in on Mrs. Lee. He bought her some gas bottles too, and some other things on her list.  
  
When Jiyong gets back, all the lights in the house are off. He dumps everything in the kitchen and moves to head upstairs to check if Seunghyun is in bed, but he sees his legs out of the corner of his eye through an open door. He is still in the spare bedroom.  
  
Jiyong flicks the light on, surprised to find Seunghyun exactly as he left him hours ago. He hasn’t even rolled over. He doesn’t wake when the lights turn on. Jiyong nudges him until he rouses.  
  
‘Have you been here since I left?’  
  
Seunghyun groans a little.  
  
_‘I’m tired’._  
  
Jiyong sweeps the hair off Seunghyun’s forehead and lays his palm flat across it.  
  
‘Do you feel alright? You’re a little warm’.  
  
‘I’m fine. I sleep hot’.  
  
And that’s true enough, but Jiyong doesn’t believe him now.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

  
The next morning, his suspicions are all but confirmed. When he gets up at 9 to put yesterdays supplies in their appropriate place, Seunghyun is still asleep. When he comes back to check on him at 10, he is still in bed.  
  
‘You never stay in bed this late,’ Jiyong tells him.  
  
Seunghyun groans and grimaces like he has the body of an octogenarian.  
  
‘I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, I’m so tired’.  
  
‘You’re sick’.  
  
‘No, I’m not’.  
  
Jiyong sits on the bed beside him and lays a palm on his forehead again.  
  
‘Seunghyun, you _are_ sick. You’re really warm. Seriously. I felt it in bed last night. I could barely touch you, you were making the whole bed hot.’  
  
‘I’m fine,’ Seunghyun enunciates unconvincingly. ‘It’s the weather. It makes me want to sleep’.  
  
Jiyong looks out the glass doors and sees the snow falling heavier. Seunghyun’s friend is supposed to arrive tomorrow. He might not make it and maybe it’s for the best now.  
  
‘I know you want to see your friend, but maybe you should cancel. You need to rest’.  
  
Seunghyun rouses himself, pretending to be well. He sits up and puts on a show of wellness. He hasn’t seen himself in a mirror so he can’t see how comical it is.  
  
‘I’m fine! It’s fine!’  
  
Jiyong sighs.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

Seunghyun’s new illness has one benefit, in that Jiyong’s throbbing mound of anxiety takes a step back, replaced by a more benign anxiety that forces him to trail behind Seunghyun the entire day, watching him pitifully pretend he isn’t sick. He forces him to take cold & flu tablets. He makes him eat soup for lunch. He makes him put on a second sweater. He sneaks up behind him and puts hand warmers in his pockets. Seunghyun is being strangely obstinate about being sick so Jiyong tries to help him discretely.  
  
He understands. Seunghyun obviously has things he’s struggling with, some of which he hasn’t fully understood yet. Telling his friend he’s gay--- telling _somebody_ that he’s gay for the first time in his life is a huge thing. He has finally made this choice after thirty-five years and now that he’s done that, his body is betraying him. To have to postpone this important moment in his life will feel like a huge step backwards. It could change everything. Maybe, he’ll change his mind. So, Jiyong understands Seunghyun’s childish denial when he starts coughing towards the end of the day.  
  
When his throat begins to hurt, Seunghyun seems to lose the will and energy to pretend and Jiyong mercifully gets him into bed early.  
  
While Seunghyun sleeps, Jiyong does one final check around the house to make sure all evidence of their cohabitation has been divested. All of their mementos are now crammed into the wardrobes in their bedroom.  
  
For good measure, Jiyong drags a suitcase into the second spare room and ruffles the sheets so it looks like he’s been sleeping there. If Seunghyun’s friend turns up tomorrow and Seunghyun gives him the tour, he’ll see that Jiyong has been sleeping elsewhere. As he does it, he is tempted to sleep in there earnestly. He doesn’t want to get sick. But guilt drags him back into bed with Seunghyun. He lays a hand on Seunghyun’s back and flinches at the heat.  
  
At midnight, he wakes him up to take some ibuprofen to try and bring his fever down.  
  
  
  
* * * *

The next morning, Jiyong leaves Seunghyun in bed and checks the driveway. He stumbles his freezing ass into the road to try and see down the street. He can barely see gravel now, snow falling thick and fast. There’s a good chance Seunghyun’s friend won’t make it and Jiyong is glad.  
  
He should get to the pharmacy today or see if a house doctor can get to them. Seunghyun spent half the night murmuring and tossing and turning, uncomfortable the entire night. He knows Seunghyun won’t drop dead, that he just has the flu or a virus, but he worries anyway. Seunghyun doesn’t get sick very often. He says the wine he drinks is a natural virus repellent. Clearly not.  
  
When he comes back inside, Seunghyun is sitting near the bottom step with his head in his hands. He looks up when Jiyong approaches.  
  
‘I don’t feel that good’.  
  
‘Seunghyun, call your friend. He can’t come’.  
  
‘I tried,’ he says, putting his phone on the step beside him. ‘No reception’.  
  
Jiyong pulls Seunghyun’s phone off the stairs and he’s right. There are no bars. He quickly checks his own phone and finds the same. He feels a different kind of panic in the back of his head now. The reception in the hills is pretty bad on a good day but they can still make calls. Not being able to use the phone while Seunghyun is sick is a bad thing. He can’t call a house doctor if he can’t call anyone. If the road closes, they’ll be stuck here. The landline phone is buried somewhere in the cellar, torn out of the wall after the 80th telemarketer. He wouldn't know where to begin looking for it.  
  
‘Fuck! It must be the storm coming in. Maybe your friend won’t get through,’ he says, moving to the window. ‘Hardly any of the road is still visible. It won’t be long until the road closes. Which means I should try and get out now.’  
  
Seunghyun lifts his weary head.  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘Seunghyun, you’re seriously sick. I need to go to the pharmacy’.  
  
‘For what?’ he shrugs. ‘It’s a virus or something. Nothing for it’.  
  
Jiyong protests but Seunghyun grimaces and asks him nicely not to go and Jiyong folds because Seunghyun looks pitiful and he makes a good point besides.  
  
‘What if the road closes and you can’t get home? It’s not safe. I need you here’.

 

* * * *

 

  
An hour later, a car pulls into the driveway. Jiyong is looking out the window when it does, and he sees the car skid precariously as it brakes. In his gut he knows, not only has Seunghyun’s friend made it through--- he can’t get back out. It’s not safe to turn him away.  
  
Seunghyun appears at the top of the stairs, freshly showered with his hair brushed and a set of warm clothes on. He looks halfway alive.  
  
‘I’ll be okay,’ Seunghyun anticipates him. ‘I’ll wrap myself in a blanket, take drugs and stay on the couch. I’ll just talk to him. This will be a very boring couple of days.’  
  
When Seunghyun’s friend gets out of the car, Jiyong can barely see his face through the falling snow but it’s enough to make his heart pound in his chest. His old anxiety comes alive again. Even knowing things will be okay, the _what-if_ rears its head again. This man could ruin him. This man he has _never_ met will know something that could tear apart his life. This man will know something that his closest friends don’t know yet. Is it right for _this_ man to know before Youngbae? Joo Star? All of them?  
  
Seunghyun comes to stand beside him and he sees the tired but genuine smile on Seunghyun’s face. His excited anticipation to see his friend, or maybe to unburden himself of this big secret. Either way, Seunghyun is calm and eager so Jiyong forces his panic back down and puts a smile on his face too. Before the guy reaches the front door, Jiyong reminds himself: This is not my home. I am a guest in this house. I am Seunghyun’s friend. There is nothing between us.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

When he gets settled in, Jung-jin seems like a decent guy. He speaks Korean with a strange European lean and sometimes slips into French when he gets excited. Jiyong can’t follow those parts. The extent of his French is a few crude references to sex and some swear words. Merde, salaud, stuff like that. Seunghyun seems not to notice when it happens. He laughs at stories about mutual friends that Jiyong doesn’t know, and they reminisce about old times.  
  
Jiyong spends his time split between monitoring Seunghyun’s health and wondering how Seunghyun has pulled off lasting relationships with friends Jiyong has never met. He’s been with Seunghyun for thirteen years at least. It’s a good thing though. It makes him happy to hear stories he’s never heard. He is glad that they’re not so co-dependent that they’ve never led their own lives. Inje is the first time they’ve ever been in each other’s pockets for such a long time. It’s good that they can exist in both worlds.  
  
Jung-jin asks about him and Jiyong answers as best he can. He tries to be interesting and entertaining but it doesn’t fully come through. He gets the feeling Jung-jin sees him as an oddity, a once famous person from Seunghyun’s past still clinging on. But he’s genuinely nice enough. He doesn’t talk about himself too much, or too much about Seunghyun. He isn’t overbearing or insipid. He just seems like a normal guy with money. It turns out he wants Seunghyun’s help nabbing a particular art piece he hasn’t been able to get his hands on. He thinks Seunghyun’s connections will help the wheels turn faster. He listens with genuine interest when Seunghyun talks about the little gallery in town.  
  
When it’s time to eat, Jiyong offers to get dinner ready. He goes to do it automatically and then remembers he’s supposed to be a guest. He makes an excuse about needing to get up anyway, _I’ll get dinner tonight. Don’t worry about it_. The story is that he’s been staying here for a few days already, so he knows his way around. It’s simple enough and Jung-jin asks no questions. So, Jiyong makes dinner but he keeps it simple. Meat and more meat basically. Jung-jin eats enough for four people and Seunghyun doesn’t eat anything. He apologises. He says his throat hurts too much to eat. Jiyong makes him a cup of broth instead and he pretends to drink that but doesn’t.  
  
As the evening wears on, Jiyong’s panic begins to dissipate. This is such an uneventful gathering. He finds himself growing bored of conversations that can’t include him. He finds himself growing tired and when he first nods off in his chair, Jung-jin’s laughter wakes him up. They take pity on him and call it a night. Jung-jin is tired from his flight and the drive down.  
  
Jiyong is careful when sneaking into the bedroom. In bed, Seunghyun melts back into a puddle of sickness. Faking pseudo wellness downstairs, his voice becomes hoarse the moment he closes the bedroom door behind him. Sweat starts dotting his forehead. He barely has the energy to take his clothes off. Jiyong gives him some more medicine, probes him about his throat and his cough and lets Seunghyun bury his face in the pillow.  
  
‘No problem,’ Seunghyun murmurs. ‘See? Will tell him tomorrow. All on track,’ he says.  
  
‘Seunghyun, you don’t have to tell him this week if you don’t feel like it. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to get too stressed or excited’.  
  
‘It’s not the 1800’s,’ Seunghyun slurs from tiredness but laughs it off. ‘I don’t have Tuberculosis. You think I’ll die if I get too _animated?_ Relax,’ he says. ‘Go to sleep’.  
  
Jiyong is surprisingly tired so he relents.

 

 

* * * *

 

 

When he wakes the next morning, Seunghyun is incredibly unwell. He is sweating so much, the sheets beneath him are wet. His breath is a little laboured. When he coughs, it sounds wet and harsh.  
  
Jiyong is careful not to wake him up when he slinks out of bed and closes the bedroom door behind him. Downstairs, he finds Jung-jin in the kitchen helping himself to some leftovers from the fridge. Jiyong says nothing about the fact he’s eating from a shared bowl with his fingers, licking them and then putting them _back_ in the bowl.  
  
‘Good-morning!’  
  
Jiyong grimaces at the cheeriness of this hello. Jung-jin has an obscene amount of energy for someone who went to bed jetlagged.  
  
‘Hey,’ Jiyong replies, his usual tired self in the mornings. ‘Listen, I caught Seunghyun a minute ago and he’s really unwell. I don’t think he’ll be getting out of bed today. He needs a lie-in’.  
  
Jung-jin’s eyebrows rise then Jiyong watches the disappointment descend, immediately followed by resignation, acceptance and equanimity. It’s an impressive feat. He shrugs good-naturedly and says, ‘That sucks. But I’ll be here a couple of days, it’s okay. We’ll talk later. Should we do something for him? Should we call a doctor?’  
  
Jiyong checks his phone and grimaces.  
  
‘No. There’s no reception right now’.  
  
‘Shit. He really moved to the boondocks, huh’.  
  
‘Yes, he did,’ Jiyong sighs.

  
* * * *

  
  
  
Three hours later, he is sprawled on the couch with a DVD playing through the projector on the far wall. Jung-jin is similarly sprawled on a second chair. They are officially snowed in with nothing to do. They have made impressive small talk but said nothing of real interest to each other, apart from a few pointed stories about Seunghyun that made each other laugh.  
  
At key points in the film, Jiyong lets his eyes rest on Seunghyun’s friend. How will he respond when Seunghyun tells him this huge secret about himself? What will he say? What will his face look like when answers?  
  
The characters in the film enter a museum and Jiyong makes more small talk to fill the silence born from neither of them fully watching the movie in the first place. He asks about the artwork Jung-jin wants Seunghyun to help him find. He replies animatedly and talks about this sculpture he saw in a studio in Paris last year. He tosses his phone over and Jiyong zooms in on the head-sized metal sculpture of – he doesn’t know what. He hands the phone back and Jung-jin tells the overlong saga of his search thus far. He saw it in a studio one day and was enthralled. This hunk of metal spoke to him. But he was working at the time and couldn’t ask about it. When he went back the next day, it was gone and he’s been following it around Europe ever since. He mentions the artists name but Jiyong doesn’t recognise it. Jung-jin tosses him his phone again.  
  
‘That’s a better picture’.  
  
Jiyong looks uninterestedly but starts at the photo when he pays attention. The artist is holding the sculpture in this photo and Jiyong recognises her. He laughs abruptly.  
  
‘Oh shit. I know this woman’.  
  
Jung-jin sits up and leans eagerly closer.  
  
‘What? How?’  
  
Jiyong shrugs and hands the phone back. He met this woman at a party once. He knows someone who knows her. He doesn’t recognise the name Jung-jin gave, but maybe she has two names. A lot of Korean artists working overseas have their home name and their foreign name. He gave this woman tickets to a concert once, for her niece or nephew? Someone.  
  
‘She owes me a favour,’ Jiyong says. ‘Maybe I can find her number when I’ve got bars again. I might be able to help you.’  
  
Jung-jin theatrically raises his hands to the ceiling.  
  
‘I could kiss you! You’re a god among men! Thank-you!’

  
  
  
  
* * * *

  
  
Thirty minutes later, the credits roll on the movie and Jiyong can’t remember a single thing about it. Jung-jin has a glassy look in his eyes like he’s in the same boat. Seunghyun interrupts their soul-crushing boredom and awkwardness by coming down the stairs looking like a moderately alive human being. He is fully dressed and his hair is brushed. Jiyong would think he was on the mend if he hadn’t seen him a few hours ago with one foot in the grave.  
  
He stands and meets Seunghyun in the hallway, whispering under his breath for Seunghyun to get the fuck back into bed and Seunghyun replies in the same hushed tone.

‘Jiyong please. I’m okay. I’ll take it easy’.  
  
‘Go to bed. I’m serious. _Go to bed’_.  
  
Hesitation flickers on Seunghyun’s face but Jung-jin seals his fate, joining them near the kitchen with a slap across Seunghyun’s back. He applauds Seunghyun’s defiance in the face of bacteria and cajoles Seunghyun into an animated conversation on the couch. Jiyong has to wait a minute before joining them because he feels such a swell of anger and frustration, it takes time to wipe it off his face.  
  
Reluctantly, he joins them in lounge room. He has no choice. Seunghyun is sicker than he wants to admit and Jung-jin seems to think Seunghyun is a grown man who knows his own limits. Jiyong knows better than that, so he has to sit close by and _watch_ him.  
  
An hour goes by and Jiyong’s mind drifts. He wonders if Seunghyun really is going to reveal the biggest secret of his life this week. Will he do it here in the lounge-room, while they talk boring shit across a coffee table? Will it be that banal? What a far cry from his own coming-out. He briefly remembers his mother’s tears and her back as she walked away from him. What a nightmare. He is so wrapped up in his thoughts, he almost doesn’t notice Seunghyun getting off the lounge. Seunghyun waves him off with his hand, _it’s fine.  
_  
‘I’m just getting a glass of water’.  
  
‘I’ll get it for you’.  
  
‘I’m not an invalid,’ Seunghyun replies.  
  
Jiyong feels a swell of anger puff out his chest again, and Jung-jin laughs.  
  
‘I wish I had an attentive friend like this. How much do you charge?’ he asks Jiyong. ‘I’ll double what Seunghyun pays you.’  
  
It’s such an obscene and shitty joke, Jiyong is about to say something rude—then he hears a sound behind him that makes him spin around. A little sound in the back of Seunghyun’s throat. He is standing stock still between the lounge and the kitchen and Jiyong stands up.  
  
‘Seunghyun—’  
  
Seunghyun turns around with a frail look on his face and they make eye contact. It makes his heart skip a beat because he recognises the signs. Jiyong jumps over the back of the couch and reaches Seunghyun in time to catch his head as he falls. Seunghyun simply drops. He passes out and Jiyong has to dive to cushion his head before he hits the ground, and even then, it’s such a forceful hit that he hurts his knuckles in the process.  
  
He slides his hands out from under Seunghyun’s head and checks the pulse in his neck like an idiot. He has to make sure he isn’t dead. That he isn’t one of the 20,000 young people who die of cardiac arrest each year without warning. He feels it. Seunghyun _has_ a pulse. Jiyong lets out a shaky breath of relief before slapping his cheek gently.  
  
_‘Seunghyun’._  
  
Jung-jin materialises beside him.  
  
‘Shit, what happened?’  
  
‘Fuck,’ Jiyong whispers. ‘ _Fuck’_.  
  
Seunghyun is burning hot and his skin clammy. The colour has drained from his face. Unconscious on the ground, he looks so much worse than he did earlier in bed. Jiyong chides himself for not staying upstairs with him. If Seunghyun’s _friend_ wasn’t here, he wouldn’t have left his side. This is his fault. He should have taken care of him better. He should have been more forceful.  
  
‘Should I call an ambulance?’ Jung-jin asks.  
  
Jiyong laughs abruptly, feeling borderline hysterical. Panic rises in his throat and the worry in his stomach balloons until he can hardly breathe. He closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. He just needs three seconds. He just needs three seconds to calm down and to think. Seunghyun will be okay. _He’ll be okay_.  
  
‘There’s no reception,’ Jiyong says quietly, reigning in his stress, ‘and the roads are blocked. But it doesn’t matter,’ he says, trying to think rationally. ‘He isn’t going to die, he’s just _sick_. We need to take him upstairs. Help me get him upstairs, okay?’  
  
He turns to face him as he says the last part and Jung-jin nods in agreement.  
  
‘Sure. Whatever you say. I’ll grab his head’.  
  
‘Thanks’.  
  
Jiyong stands and finds his knees buckle unexpectedly. He’s shaking all over from the sudden stress and it takes work to settle himself down. He lifts Seunghyun’s feet and tries not to look at his face. It upsets him. Seunghyun is moving a little, not fully unconscious, but he isn’t meant to see Seunghyun on the ground. He isn’t meant to see him like this. It makes him feel sick.  
  
Jung-jin takes Seunghyun’s shoulders and on the count of three, they lift him. Jiyong directs them upstairs. It’s awkward but they manage to carry Seunghyun into the bedroom.  
  
‘Just here’.  
  
They lay him on the bed and Seunghyun grimaces, murmuring to himself. He looks uncomfortable and pained and Jiyong forgets about the other guy entirely. His world narrows to a point. There is only room in his head for Seunghyun and what he can do for him. He doesn’t know— _he’s not a doctor_. Stress threatens to bubble over again and Jiyong takes another three seconds to calm down.  
  
He ducks into the bathroom, pulls the first aid bag out of the bottom drawer and finds the thermometer. He holds it over Seunghyun’s forehead until it beeps. Jung-jin looks at the read-out over his shoulder and comments.  
  
‘That’s bad but it could be worse.’  
   
He isn’t wrong. Seunghyun’s fever is too high but it isn’t life-threatening. It’s a small consolation. Jiyong can try and bring it down. Back in the bathroom, he pulls a washer out and runs it under cold water before wringing out the excess. When it touches Seunghyun’s forehead, Jiyong sees the little change in his face—the temporary relief the coldness brings him. It calms his nerves. Jiyong leaves it there, already thinking about the next step.  
  
‘Why did he collapse?’ Jung-jin asks. ‘The fever?’  
  
‘That and I don’t think he’s eaten anything in days. That’s probably why.’ Jiyong snaps his fingers and points to Seunghyun’s bedside table. ‘There should be some ibuprofen in the drawer there. I’m going to get a glass of water for him’.  
  
Jiyong heads downstairs and his mind goes blank. He moves on autopilot.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
  
  
  
Jiyong rolls his neck, trying to work out the knot at the top of his spine. His back has been twisted for thirty minutes, contorted into one of Seunghyun’s aesthetic (but non-functional) chairs. It usually sits in the corner of their bedroom with shirts thrown over the back. Today, he has pulled it close to Seunghyun so he can keep an eye on him.  
  
Earlier, he roused Seunghyun enough to give him some ibuprofen and that was all before he disappeared again, out of his mind or half asleep. He has been tossing and turning ever since, mumbling in his dreams. He looks exhausted and unwell. Seunghyun began coughing every now and then but the time is shortening between each one. Now, he coughs every minute or two and they rattle.  
  
Jung-jin migrated downstairs when Seunghyun was settled. He didn’t want to get sick and he had nothing left to do. Jiyong hasn’t missed his company. The thought of feigning platonic friendship while Seunghyun is sick exhausts him. He’s bound to do or say something that will give them away, and if he does that before Seunghyun can have his big moment? A frustrating fuck-up will be an understatement.  
  
He has been alone with Seunghyun for a little over an hour, sitting on the bed and then lying on the floor, then shifting in an uncomfortable chair every few minutes. He shifts again now, the unforgiving contours of an art deco chair digging into one of his kidneys. Maybe part of growing older is realising furniture has to be functional, not just beautiful.  
  
As if reacting to his thoughts in protest, Seunghyun groans quietly and shifts, half-awake but not all there. Jiyong sits on the bed beside him and turns the washer on his head so the cooler side is touching his skin. Seunghyun’s cheeks are hot and glistening with sweat. Pinprick droplets pepper his face and neck and the collar of his shirt is stained a dark colour. Jiyong checks his temperature again and the effects of the ibuprofen seem to be wearing off already. He’s too hot. It’s probably his clothes. He’s dressed for a different set of circumstances, still lying here in his trousers, a long-sleeved top and a sweater over that. Jiyong tried to take them off earlier but he couldn’t manage on his own. Asleep, Seunghyun is dead weight.  
  
‘Seunghyun, can you sit up?’  
  
He asks gingerly but Seunghyun doesn’t answer. His brow furrows like he’s heard a distant noise he desperately wants to be _quiet_. He lets out a prolonged cough and then his features soften like he is falling asleep again.  
  
‘Seunghyun, don’t go to sleep. I need you to sit up. I need you to help me. We have to take your sweater off. It’s too hot’.  
  
He tries to pull Seunghyun’s chest off the bed and halfway manages, but there’s no way to actually get the top off without dropping him. Seunghyun isn’t conscious enough to be useful. He shakes Seunghyun’s shoulder to try and wake him up but all he gets in return is Seunghyun’s obvious discomfort and irritation. Jiyong lifts Seunghyun’s sweater from the bottom instead and grimaces at the shirt beneath. A sort of emerald colour, it has darkened so much in the middle it looks almost black. Seunghyun is drenched in sweat. He is practically roasting in his clothes. Outside, snow is falling past the double windows. It’s a strange contrast. He thinks about opening the doors to cool the room down, but then what? Seunghyun gets pneumonia?  
  
Jiyong groans at the alternative. Seunghyun will hate him for it but what choice does he have? It’s impossible to undress him like this, even with all their years of drunken experience, trying to make each other comfortable after a night of heavy drinking. Maybe it’s just been a while and he’s lost his skill. When they were in their mid-twenties, he could completely undress an unconscious Seunghyun. On a few occasions, he even managed to get his pyjamas on as well. Maybe his own drunkenness just allowed him to take liberties then, pulling and yanking limbs in the wrong directions. He doesn’t want to do that now.  
  
‘Alright. Well, I’m sorry in advance,’ Jiyong says tentatively. ‘But you’re asleep and hopefully you won’t remember anything’.  
  
Downstairs, Jung-jin is rifling through the pantry looking for something to eat. He turns when Jiyong enters the kitchen and asks how Seunghyun is doing.  
  
‘I don’t know. His cough sounds bad. It sounds like the beginning of a chest infection. Maybe he has the flu? He’s still really hot’.  
  
‘Are you taking a break?’  
  
‘Not exactly. Someone should keep an eye on him. He got worse so quickly’.  
  
‘It happens like that sometimes’.  
  
‘Sure’.  
  
Jiyong shifts his weight awkwardly, reluctant to ask this stranger for help, especially help that Seunghyun would fucking hate but what other choice does he have? Who else is there? Who knows how long Seunghyun will be off with the fairies, unable to sit himself up and be useful.  
  
‘Listen,’ Jiyong begins, ‘I need some help up there, if you have a minute?’  
  
‘For what?’  
  
‘Undressing him? He’s too hot in those clothes and I can’t take them off him, he’s dead weight’.  
  
Jung-jin pulls a weird face, like _everything that can go wrong on this trip obviously will_ \--- but he shrugs and closes the pantry door in resignation.  
  
‘Alright. Let’s go’.  
  
At the end of Seunghyun’s bed, Jung-jin grimaces as he figures out the logistics, painting a picture in his head before they’ve even started. It’s not a heterosexual hang-up of not wanting to touch another man. This just isn’t the type of relationship he has with Seunghyun. Their friendship is more of a detached affair. They get along but there’s always business involved and there’s a little distance, even if they enjoy each other’s company and have been friends for a decade. They’re the sort of friends who usually have a buffer friend in between them.  
  
‘Who’s going to actually undress him?’  
  
‘I will,’ Jiyong shrugs, adding belatedly, ‘if you want’.  
  
Jung-jin grimaces.  
  
‘It just feels a bit like overstepping for me’.  
  
Jiyong rolls his eyes unseen but shows a polite expression and nods in sympathy. When Jung-jin asks why he’s so comfortable doing this, Jiyong gestures like the answer is obvious. Really, it should be.  
  
‘We lived together when we were _teenagers_ ,’ he explains. ‘We slept in the same bedroom for 12 months when we were 18 and in the same tiny apartment for years after that. Trust me, there’s nothing I haven’t seen. This? This is whatever. It doesn’t matter. He’s like--- my _brother,_ ’ Jiyong says, swallowing the distaste from saying that.  
  
Jung-jin nods though, like he had forgotten Seunghyun’s beginnings in a struggling boy group. Jiyong takes a moment to marvel at how many of Seunghyun’s friends manage to discount that part of his life. Seunghyun is so good at compartmentalising, his tenure with Bigbang is sometimes a footnote instead of the main event. Seunghyun has friends who see him as an eccentric wealthy art connoisseur who has some undisclosed background in music.  
  
Jiyong shakes off the thought and gestures for Jung-jin to stand beside the bed and lift Seunghyun’s upper body off the mattress. When he does, Jiyong does his best to take the sweater off, which is more awkward than it should be, trying to slip Seunghyun’s arms out. Eventually they manage and then the shirt too. Jung-jin lets Seunghyun back down and his eyebrows rise in surprise.  
  
‘Does he work out?’  
  
Jiyong does a double take and follows the guy’s eyeline to Seunghyun’s chest which, despite being wet with sweat, is very toned. Something most people never see. A smile tugs at Jiyong’s lips but he manages to hold it back.  
  
‘Yeah, I think he does work out. Weights and stuff?’  
  
Jung-jin touches his own chest reflexively.  
  
‘Why is he always wearing 12 layers of clothing if he looks like that? Shit’.  
  
Jiyong shrugs, laughing on the inside. One of the biggest surprises of moving to the boondocks and into temporary retirement is that Seunghyun kept working out. There was no 10lbs gained from rest and relaxation. Working out and lifting weights had become part of his routine. It helped centre him. Jiyong has been selfishly reaping the rewards. The fact is, Seunghyun looks hot as hell. He’s aging like a fine wine that gets stronger as the years pass and makes it known in the bedroom.  
  
‘You know what they say,’ Jiyong says. ‘Less body fat, less insulation. Maybe he’s cold all the time’.  
  
Jung-jin shakes his head and steps back from the bed and Jiyong has to take a deep breath for the final ask.  
  
‘I need to take his pants off. Do you think you could lift him up an inch or so?’  
  
Jung-jin grimaces and closes his eyes for a moment in silent prayer, but he stands where he needs to and the look of abject resignation is basically consent. Jiyong smiles, unable to fully suppress it this time. There’s something about this childish reaction that makes him want to laugh out loud. It distracts him from the voice in the back of his head saying Seunghyun would hate this. He would hate another person touching him or _seeing_ his body.  
  
Jiyong tosses Seunghyun’s wet shirt and sweater in the corner and they do what needs to be done. Jung-jin winces when Jiyong unbuttons Seunghyun’s trousers and undoes the fly. He can understand on some level. How would he feel doing this to someone he wasn’t intimately close to? It _does_ feel invasive, like taking advantage. But it _has_ to be done. When Seunghyun is lifted, Jiyong pulls his trousers off and quickly covers him up with the sheet.  
  
Jung-jin exhales when it’s over like he has finished a long hard day at work.  
  
‘Thank-you,’ Jiyong says. ‘He’s better off now. He would have done that for you’.  
  
‘Well,’ Jung-jin answers, shaking his head. ‘I hope when the day comes that I’m sick and incapacitated, I’m at a swiss resort with beautiful young nurses tending to my every whim and need in the fresh mountain air. No offence, but I hope Seunghyun isn’t there’.  
  
Jiyong laughs quietly.  
  
‘You should come downstairs,’ Jung-jin says. ‘Take a break’.  
  
‘Yeah. I’ll just change his washer’.  
  
  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
  
Jiyong sinks gingerly onto a chair in the dining room and closes his eyes like the rigid wood is a Swedish masseuse. He has been so uncomfortable in the room upstairs that a regular seat feels incredible. His spine unfurls and thanks him profusely.  
  
Jung-jin comes out of the kitchen with a packet of biscuits and Jiyong marvels at how literally he’s taken _make yourself at home_. Every time he sees the guy, he’s eating something. Then again, there’s not much else to do when you’re physically trapped indoors and the reception is too spotty for the internet to work properly.  
  
Jung-jin sits opposite him at the table and for a moment they stare at each other with nothing to say. Jiyong could easily say nothing. He is tired and small talk feels like a chore. Without Seunghyun as an intermediary, they have nothing to talk about. Jung-jin opens the biscuits and Jiyong watches crumbs spill across the tabletop. Jung-jin brushes them onto the floor and speaks with his mouth full.  
  
‘I guess you and Seunghyun don’t see each other much now?’  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘You’re here to visit him, right?’ Jung-jin says. ‘You mustn’t see him a lot now that he lives all the way out here’.  
  
‘Oh, yeah,’ Jiyong nods. ‘I guess not. It’s a little out of the way’.  
  
‘He said I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone where he lived,’ Jung-jin squints. ‘Like he’s Batman or something and this is the Batcave.’  
  
‘He likes his privacy. Even his parents think he lives in Jeju.’  
  
‘His parents don’t know where he _lives?’  
_  
Jiyong shrugs, hoping this small grain of truth will impress upon him how serious Seunghyun was when he said _don’t tell anyone where I live_. The last thing they need is a string of Seunghyun’s other friends showing up on the doorstep unannounced. Telling one friend is one thing, telling all of them is another.  
  
‘It prevents unexpected drop-ins,’ Jiyong explains.  
  
‘Wow, we’re on the VIP list then, huh?’  
  
‘We’re blessed’.  
  
Jung-jin shoves another biscuit in his mouth and leans back in his chair.  
  
‘I’ve never been in a secret club before, except the freemasons,’ he says, tapping his nose ironically. ‘And the foxtail club. That’s this rich guy drinking club in London. I think it started as a joke and everyone got way too comfortable. Once a month they all meet in the same club dressed like old billionaires and talk like their mouths are full’.  
  
‘Doesn’t seem like your crowd’.  
  
‘That’s the joke, I guess. We’re all Asian. The guy who started it is a Chinese billionaire. I guess he gets to live his fantasy of being an 18th century white oppressor. They have fun with it'.  
  
Jiyong’s brow furrows.  
  
‘And your invitation came from?’  
  
‘Jenny Hong. She’s an artist I know. We got drunk in the same place once and you know. Dom Perignon makes fast friends.’  
  
‘Of course.’  
  
Jiyong smiles out of politeness and checks the time on his phone. There is still no reception. He would feel better about Seunghyun’s rattling coughs upstairs if he could get some help. There’s no cough syrup in the house. No antibiotics. They have nothing.  
  
He stares at his reflection in the screen when it dims. He looks rough. Part of him wants to go upstairs and crawl into bed. Where better to keep an eye on Seunghyun than from the pillow next to him?  
  
Like that, thinking about other things entirely, something pops into Jiyong’s head. A name. The artist Jung-jin wanted Seunghyun’s help tracking down--- he has her information in a LINE chat. He _does_ know her Korean name. Even without the internet, he should be able to find her contact number. He remembers a turned-down invitation to a party she co-hosted the year before and his own excuse for not going.  
  
Seunghyun had gone to Europe for two weeks and was flying home the day after Jiyong was supposed to fly out. He bought a plane ticket fully intending to fly all the way to Paris to hang out with his friends and attend this party but he had _missed_ Seunghyun and he was a little antsy maybe, so he didn’t get on the plane. Instead, he waited in Seunghyun’s bed for the car service to drop him home and when Seunghyun walked through the front door--- well. The sex didn’t last long but it was worth it. That night, he slept with his face in Seunghyun’s armpit and didn’t feel bad about the party at all. He sent a message excusing his absence. He blamed it on a sick relative.  
  
Looking back, he marvels at how co-dependent they were while still being independent in other ways. Before moving to Inje, they had pulled it off somehow. They had achieved balance.  
  
‘I think I know where to get that woman’s number,’ he tells Jung-jin absently. ‘The artist who made that sculpture you want to buy? Let me have a look.’  
  
He lazily pulls up the messaging app on his phone. He has to scroll down eight times just to find the right conversation. Then it takes thirty search keywords trying to find the right part of the chat. He takes his time with it. While he’s looking at his phone, Jung-jin is silent. Nothing against the guy, but Jiyong has other things on his mind. He doesn’t want to make small talk here pretending he’s a visitor in his own home, pretending Seunghyun is just a very old friend. It hasn’t been a problem so far but the more he has to do it, the more annoying it will become.  
  
Of course, he eventually he finds what he’s looking for. He finds the invitation to the party and the details. He finds a phone number. He writes it all out with a pen and paper because he thinks that will take longer. He also writes down the address of her work studio to prolong the silence in the room.  
  
Jung-jin doesn’t react the way Jiyong expects. Not at first. When he sees the information written down, his face blanches and he looks genuinely surprised.  
  
‘What?’ Jiyong asks. ‘You recognise the address or something?’  
  
Jung-jin shakes his head, emerging from a daze.  
  
‘No. Sorry. It just reminded me of something. I appreciate you doing this for me,’ he says, tapping the paper. ‘Thanks a lot. There’s hope for my art collection yet.’  
  
After a while, Jiyong goes back into the bedroom and sits in the art deco chair that hurts his back. He rests his ear on his shoulder and watches Seunghyun’s chest rise and fall beneath the sheet. He listens to his frequent rattling coughs. He grimaces when Seunghyun grimaces.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
  
  
He is starting to drift off when Seunghyun coughs painfully in a drawn out, suffocating way. It’s harsh and loud and Jiyong snaps awake to find Jung-jin standing in front of him. His sudden appearance disorients him. Maybe he’s been asleep for a while. His neck aches enough. He shouldn’t be this tired.  
  
He is about to check on Seunghyun and change his washer but Jung-jin waves him back down. He checks Seunghyun’s temperature himself. He gives a thumps up after checking the reading.  
  
‘It’s a bit lower than before. Me getting to second base was all worth it then’.  
  
Jiyong grimaces at the joke. Seunghyun coughs again and it’s like the crack of thunder on a quiet night. It sounds like he can’t breathe properly. It makes Jiyong anxious. He bites his lip unconsciously. He doesn’t know how to help him. They have nothing in the house for a chest infection. Nothing at all. Winter is still a week away. He hasn’t been to the pharmacy. All they have is ibuprofen and cold and flu tablets and there are only two of those left.  
  
Seunghyun doesn’t get sick very often. Not this kind of sick anyway. Exhausted sick? Sure. They’ve both had their share over the last twenty years. Travelling incessantly and doing shows every second night for 12 months at a time was punishing on the body. Often enough, they were sick more than they were healthy. But it was usually lethargic, _god just fucking let me sleep_ sick. Not this.  
  
‘You look tired,’ Jung-jin says. ‘Why don’t you go to bed? I can hang around for a while and keep an eye on him.’  
  
‘I’m fine,’ Jiyong answers quietly. ‘But thanks.’  
  
‘You can’t stay in here all night’.  
  
‘I didn’t say I would. It’s only been a few hours.’  
  
Jung-jin pulls a sceptical face and Jiyong tries to ignore it. Maybe it seems strange from the outside to be concerned about a chest cough, or the flu or whatever this is. But Jiyong can count on one hand all the times in his life that he’s seen Seunghyun faint, so maybe he’s a little concerned. Maybe he just needs to be _sure_ that he’s okay. They aren’t backstage at a show with thirty people offering food, water and medical know-how. Seunghyun is on his own.  
  
‘What?’ Jiyong presses when Jung-jin eyes him again. ‘I’m not allowed to sit here? Do you want this backwards chair for yourself? There are twenty other seats in this house that you’re welcome to.’  
  
Jung-jin smiles and shakes his head.  
  
‘No, It’s nothing. You’re just a good friend, that’s all.’  
  
‘What’s with the face then? Is that a bad thing?’  
  
‘No, but I can’t think of many friends who’d do this for me if I had a cough.’  
  
‘Maybe they just don’t like you enough.’  
  
‘Maybe.’  
  
Jung-jin paces up the left side of the room, past the chest of drawers and the framed receipt Seunghyun gave him for his last birthday; his very first artwork sold. Jung-jin leans down and squints at the writing along the bottom. It makes Jiyong nervous but he knows there’s nothing incriminating. There’s no love note scrawled across the paper.  
  
Jung-jin moves again without comment, stopping at the sporadic pictures on the wall, scrutinising each one like a critic at an art gallery. Jiyong subtly looks at his own side of the room. Maybe he missed something. It was pure luck that everything signalling their relationship was shoved in the closets and not strewn across the room when they came in earlier. When he went around the house earlier in the week divesting all evidence of them being together, he hid everything in here under the assumption this room would be off limits.  
  
Jung-jin turns around and follows his searching gaze.  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘Nothing,’ Jiyong shrugs.  
  
Jung-jin leans against the far wall and folds his arms. For a while, the room is silent. Jiyong tries to tune his presence out but it’s difficult. Are they both going to watch Seunghyun sleep?  
  
Seunghyun coughs again and it sounds so laboured and painful, Jiyong really grimaces at the sound of it. Seunghyun has been sick for days, but this is such a fast decline. He was walking around yesterday and now he’s coughing up a lung, barely conscious.  
  
‘We should sit him up,’ Jiyong says. ‘It might help him breathe better’.  
  
‘Alright’.  
  
Jiyong goes into the spare room for a bigger pillow and Jung-jin helps pull Seunghyun up so he can slide it in behind him. He slides a second smaller pillow behind Seunghyun’s head and holds the back of his neck for a moment, forgetting where he is, forgetting that someone is watching him. Seunghyun is just so hot, he loses himself for a second. It’s hard seeing him like this, even if it isn’t the end of the world. It’s upsetting. The sheet falls down around Seunghyun’s waist and Jiyong feels the heat coming off his bare chest. He still sees the sweat dotting his skin.  
  
He picks the washer up from where it fell and wipes the sweat from Seunghyun’s chest before pulling the sheet back over him. Hopefully sitting up will help him. Jiyong replaces the washer with a fresh one that’s cold and wipes Seunghyun’s face with it. Then he resumes his place in the unforgiving chair in the corner.  
  
Jung-jin is standing by the chest of drawers again. He looks incredulous. Jiyong says nothing to him. Instead, he looks out the glass doors at the snow still falling. It is lighter now. Perhaps the cold spell is dissipating. He wonders how long it will be until the road clears. One day? Two?  
  
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine,’ Jung-jin says tentatively.  
  
‘Yeah, I’m sure he will.’  
  
Jung-jin purses his lips like he wants to say more but is holding back. Jiyong doesn’t probe him. Sometimes, things are better left unsaid. Eventually, Jung-jin breaks the silence regardless. He picks up the framed receipt, scrutinises it a second time, then puts it back down on the dresser.  
  
‘Maybe I was hoping for a photo of a secret girlfriend,’ he says.  
  
‘Looks like you’re out of luck.’  
  
‘It does look that way.’  
  
Jiyong looks back at Seunghyun and tries to ignore the looming presence Jung-jin is becoming in the room. Jiyong feels his eyeballs scanning every nook and cranny. He shifts in his seat in case the guy goes bonkers and starts opening drawers and closet doors. If he has to barricade his own wardrobe, he’ll lose it. What is he talking about, anyway?  
  
‘For some reason. I thought he was seeing someone.’  
  
‘What makes you say that?’ Jiyong asks.  
  
‘I went in the ensuite earlier, when we first came in. There are two sinks,’ he says. ‘Two toothbrushes. Two of everything’.  
  
‘Are there women’s things in there?’  
  
Jung-jin clicks his tongue.  
  
‘You got me there. It doesn’t look like it. I guess he just likes having options in the morning’.  
  
‘Must do’.  
  
Jung-jin smiles knowingly and it makes Jiyong uncomfortable. Maybe he’s already given their relationship away. Maybe he _is_ acting too concerned about Seunghyun’s cough and fainting, but what sort of sociopath wouldn’t? If he was a regular friend, what would he do? Leave him alone with a raging fever and hope for the best? Jiyong feels a swell of anxiety suddenly. A sense of foreboding.  
  
‘How many times have you visited Seunghyun since he moved here?’ Jung-jin asks. Suspicious suddenly, the question feels like a trap and Jiyong doesn’t know which answer to give to avoid it, or even if he should.  
  
‘A few times. Why?’  
  
‘Just wondering. You seem to know where everything is. I don’t think I’d know where to find  a thermometer in any of my friend’s homes. Especially ones in the bottom drawer of an ensuite bathroom.’  
  
Jiyong laughs suddenly, a short clipped laugh and shakes his head.  
  
‘Seunghyun was sick before you got here. I watched him pull it out’.  
  
Jung-jin concedes.  
  
‘That does make sense.’  
  
Jiyong feels anxiety ripple through him. The guy obviously thinks he knows something. Why else would he say these things out of the blue? Why did he look at the receipt twice? Was there something on it that he’s forgotten about? Some evidence that they are seeing each-other? There _can’t_ be. He has looked at that receipt and frame a hundred times. There isn’t even a name on it.  
  
Even if the goal of this trip was Seunghyun telling his friend the truth, it shouldn’t happen _this_ way. He shouldn’t piece it together on his own from benign clues around the house or in his behaviour or however it’s happened. And Jiyong shouldn’t be goaded into confessing when Seunghyun is unconscious either. He shouldn’t be goaded into confessing _ever_ , least of all in his own bedroom to a man he doesn’t _know.  
_  
Whatever this guy is doing, whatever these questions are about, Jiyong won’t confirm a thing. He shouldn’t have to. It’s Seunghyun’s time to unburden himself. Is he supposed to take this opportunity away from him? Be forced into it? What did he do to give away their relationship? Jung-jin figured it all out because he’s concerned about Seunghyun’s health? Or was it not showing performative disgust at having to undress him? Maybe none of the above.  
  
‘Hey, can I ask you something?’  
  
‘What?’ Jiyong sighs, knowing this will be just as much a trap as the last few questions.  
  
‘Why did you retire?’  
  
Jiyong’s brow furrows and they make eye contact. It sounds like an earnest question and he waits for the twist.  
  
‘I didn’t. I’m taking a break’.  
  
‘I don’t follow K-pop that much but I heard it was a pretty big deal when you left your company. They almost went bankrupt’.  
  
Jiyong flinches. He doesn’t want to dwell on the damage he unwittingly caused when he left. He knew what would happen before he made the choice to leave and he left anyway. He doesn’t regret it, but he still feels some responsibility. Closure was only narrowly avoided. When he and Seunghyun left, Bigbang were officially disbanded in the eyes of the public, even if they never made that claim. Without the group being active, the company’s revenue collapsed. There are still people he cares about working there. Daesung and Youngbae still work there. Even if he _had_ to leave, he’s sorry for causing them heartache. He doesn’t want to be responsible for making other people’s jobs more difficult or for anyone losing theirs, because there were necessary cutbacks in the wake of his departure. The company let people go.  
  
‘You and Seunghyun left around the same time, didn’t you? A week apart? Something like that? It’s a shame you both went so close together. That’s probably what did it. Both of you at once? What a loss’.  
  
Jiyong sighs and closes his eyes.  
  
‘Did you both talk about leaving beforehand or was it just a coincidence?’  
  
‘We talked,’ Jiyong answers sedately.  
  
Jung-jin nods knowingly but they go through the motions all the same and he says what he says next with no preamble or subtlety.  
  
‘And did you talk about moving out here together?’  
  
Jiyong grinds his teeth and purses his lips. The sense of foreboding immediately bears fruit. He thought the guy knew something but to actually _know?_ Surprised, he can’t think of a good defence. He can’t think of a witty quip to deflect this. When he manages to speak, it’s through grit teeth.  
  
‘I don’t know what you mean.’  
  
Jung-jin moves to Seunghyun’s bedside table and pulls it open.  
  
_‘Hey!’_ Jiyong exclaims. ‘What are you doing?’  
  
Jung-jin raises a hand as if to say _it’s fine._ He pulls out a greeting card Jiyong hasn’t seen in a while. He blanches in recognition and his eyes close again. His throat burns like he might burst into tears suddenly. This man was supposed to leave this house knowing all about their relationship but to experience it like this is a violation. It upsets him unexpectedly. He wasn’t prepared for it.  
  
‘Earlier, you asked me to get some ibuprofen out of this drawer. You went downstairs to get a glass of water and I took a peek at this card. It wasn’t in an envelope or anything, it was just loose,’ Jung-jin says, like that exonerates him. He opens it now. ‘It’s a birthday card. It’s obviously written by a partner. There’s stuff in here that can’t be misinterpreted. Very loving. I thought a girlfriend must have given to him. There’s no name though. Whoever wrote it didn’t sign it.’  
  
Jiyong stares at the floor and anxiety consumes him so completely that he feels almost calm. He is both things at once. It is like being on a runaway train destined to crash. He knows what’s coming but he can’t do anything about it so the final stretch of the track is oddly quiet.  
  
‘But _you_ wrote it, didn’t you?’ Jung-jin asks, already knowing. ‘Downstairs, you wrote that woman’s address down for me and I recognised your handwriting. It’s very distinct’.  
  
Jiyong looks at him vacantly and shrugs.  
  
‘What do you want me to say?’  
  
‘Nothing. I just—'  
  
Seunghyun breaks up their conversation with a chain of coughs so forceful he bends forward on the bed. It’s a hacking cough to try and clear his throat. It sounds awful. Each one makes Jiyong flinch. They both pause to watch him, waiting for the calm. Between each cough is a gasp for air that rattles.  
  
When the coughing finally stops, Seunghyun’s eyes open halfway. He takes a moment to settle, then he stretches across the bed unexpectedly and plucks the card right out of Jung-jin’s hand. His movements are slow and lethargic but he gets it on the first try and collapses back down against the pillows, shoving the card beneath him. When he speaks, his voice is so rough and gravelly. He doesn’t sound like himself.  
  
‘Will you both stop talking, _please’._  
  
It hasn’t been that long but it feels like Seunghyun hasn’t spoken in weeks. It’s jarring to suddenly hear his voice. Jiyong’s lips part to apologise but Seunghyun turns his head away from him. He raises a lax hand between himself and Jung-jin, fingers outstretched in a weak entreaty.   
  
_‘I’m gay,_ ’ Seunghyun tells him, quietly. ‘ _Surprise!_ You’ve figured it out. Jiyong’s my partner. Don’t torture him’.  
  
The words hit the room like a bomb going off, one so deafening that it becomes absolute silence. Jung-jin’s eyebrows rise in surprise. Jiyong watches in abject shock. He holds his breath and feels a surge of panic, waiting for the next explosion. Waiting for the rebuttal. Waiting for the argument or the questions or the barrage of emotions flying around the room like a bullet. He shrinks from it pre-emptively, but it doesn’t come. Nothing happens.  
  
Seunghyun closes his eyes, his head back against his pillow. His hand drops back to the mattress. In a gravelly, quiet voice, he asks them both to leave because he’s _tired_ and wants peace and quiet.  
  
It’s so ordinary. Jung-jin whispers a quiet apology and leaves the room with a sheepish expression like nothing happened. Like Seunghyun didn’t just say something so enormous it has the power to destroy his _life_. Jiyong lingers for a while in shock. He can’t think straight. He is only roused by Seunghyun’s faint whisper.  
  
_‘Jiyong, please’._  
  
Jiyong mumbles some vacant apology, still caught in a moronic stupor. He makes it halfway out the door before he turns back and throws open the wardrobe door. His brain has reawakened at the last second and done something useful.  
  
Seunghyun’s eyes open again but only for a moment when Jiyong drops a gold bell on the bedside table beside him. It was forwarded to him a few months earlier as part of an eccentric invitation to Paris Fashion Week. He held onto it because it had a nice ornate carving on the side. He liked the look of it. Most importantly, it works and it’s loud.  
  
‘If you need anything, ring this bell okay? I’ll come right up,’ Jiyong says gently.  
  
‘Mmhmm’.  
  
Seunghyun’s eyes close again, so completely exhausted. Jiyong touches his fingers lightly and leaves the room. He leaves the door open, just in case.  
  
  
 

  
  
  
  
* * *  


 

When Jiyong reaches the bottom of the stairs, Jung-jin is loitering in the dining room. They make eye contact and for a moment Jiyong _really_ feels like there’s no precedent for this. _When,_ at any time on planet Earth, has this situation happened to another human being? He doesn’t know how to act or what to say. This secondary part of the confession is supposed to Seunghyun’s. The aftermath is supposed to be on him, or at least the two of them together. He shouldn’t be standing at the bottom of his own staircase, wondering what to say to a near-stranger who just found out the biggest secret of his life.  
  
Jung-jin must read the expression on his face because he speaks first.  
  
‘Look, I’m sorry about that,’ he says. ‘I just thought it would be easier if you didn’t have to pretend. You’re obviously worried about him. Now you can be his boyfriend or whatever you are to him. Act like you would if I wasn’t here,’ he gestures simply.  
  
Jiyong squints, really trying to absorb this apology, if it even is one.  
  
_‘What?’_  
  
‘Upstairs,’ Jung-jin says. ‘It seemed like you wanted to do more for him but couldn’t because I was there and you had to keep this thing between you a secret. No secret, no problem’.  
  
Jiyong smiles incredulous and enters the dining room with his hands on his hips.  
  
‘No secret, no problem?’  
  
‘I mean—’  
  
Jiyong shakes his head and butts in immediately.  
  
‘No secret, no problem? I don’t even _know_ you,’ Jiyong exclaims. ‘But you stand in my house and push me to _out_ myself? What’s the matter with you?’  
  
Jung-jin’s lips part to defend himself but he thinks better of it.  
  
‘Are you insane?’ Jiyong demands. ‘You think this is Paris? You think Seunghyun and I can cavalierly tell whoever we want? Did you think about leaving the room? If you thought being in the room was stopping me from looking after him, why didn’t you _leave?_ You thought you would out me instead? You would force me to tell you, a complete stranger, the biggest secret of my life?’  
  
Jung-jin flinches under this sudden onslaught and Jiyong raises his hands impatiently, waiting for an answer. It isn’t that satisfying when it comes.  
  
‘I didn’t think about it like that’.  
  
‘You didn’t think about it like that? Asshole’.  
  
Jung-jin clasps his two hands together in apology. It’s obvious he really _didn’t_ think about it, that he lives in some parallel universe where everyone’s sexuality is open knowledge and there are no repercussions or emotional factors involved in having to reveal yourself to strangers piecemeal.  
  
‘I’m sorry I did that,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t thinking about it like that, okay? I really apologise.’  
  
Jiyong wants to smack this guy upside the head or dropkick him out the front-door so he can freeze to death. Instead, all the frustration trickles out of him, replaced by lethargy and ambivalence. What does it matter? It should, but this has happened so suddenly and so anticlimactically, his brain has atrophied. He feels like he should be saying something or _doing_ something, but he doesn’t know what. So, he just accepts it.  
  
Jung-jin sits down at the table and shakes a packet of biscuits like it’s a literal olive branch.  
  
‘You want to eat with me?’  
  
Jiyong shrugs and sits down opposite him, pulling a handful of biscuits out of the packet. He shoves one in his mouth and leans back in his chair, his mind emptier than it should be. Seunghyun just told someone he was gay for the first time in his _life_. They never had that conversation with each other let alone anyone else. There was never a moment between them where they shared that confession and it was new information. That wasn’t a catalyst to their relationship. They just started fooling around. By the time Seunghyun actually said the words ‘I’m gay’ out loud, it was pretty fucking obvious because they’d been having sex for months.  
  
When they finally did have the conversation, Seunghyun admitted he tried dating women up until he was 20 but it never felt right. Jiyong confessed that women did feel right but men felt right too. Seunghyun felt right. So, Seunghyun was gay and he was bi. The end. The conversation happened so late in their relationship. Which means Seunghyun’s croaky, frustrated exclamation upstairs was officially his first real confession. _Ever._  
  
Jiyong shakes his head just thinking about it. Of course it would happen like this. A week of planning and stress, wondering how the momentous occasion would eventually unfold and it shoots out of Seunghyun like a cough or a sneeze. It’s such a contrast to his own coming out, but maybe this was better for Seunghyun. Maybe this was easier than trying to think of the right words, trying to explain himself and their personal history. How do you ease into that conversation? How do you begin? Maybe it makes sense for his coming out to happen this way _. I’m gay! Surprise! Now leave me alone._  
  
Jiyong swallows the dry biscuit down and wipes a crumb from his mouth. Jung-jin looks like his mind is similarly empty. He doesn’t look shocked or bothered by Seunghyun’s confession. He isn’t reeling or mulling it over or planning his escape. He’s just eating a biscuit.  
  
‘What Seunghyun said to you,’ Jiyong begins. ‘Are you _okay_ with that?’  
  
He feels a brief sense of awareness that if the answer isn’t yes, he will physically fight this man. Maybe it’s Seunghyun’s vulnerability right now, but he feels overly protective.    
  
‘Him being gay?’ Jung-jin asks. ‘To tell you the truth, I thought he was gay already. It’s not a big surprise’.  
  
‘Upstairs, you said you were looking for proof of a girlfriend’.  
  
‘Oh, that? I was prompting you to confess. I know Seunghyun’s not into women. I guess I thought he was gay, or celibate maybe?’ Jung-jin posits. ‘Like maybe he just wasn’t into sex. After the tenth time we went out and he didn’t look at a single woman with that look in his eye --- I made assumptions.’  
  
‘I’ll have to tell him to flirt more.’  
  
‘I think women like that he’s disinterested. They think it’s sexy or something. They think he’s aloof and mysterious. I don’t think anyone’s first thought is _he’s gay_ ’.  
  
‘It was yours.’  
  
‘Well, I don’t know. I have gay friends. You kind of pick things up,’ he says noncommittally. ‘Then again, I didn’t think you were gay. Not that I’ve ever thought about it’.  
  
Jiyong starts another biscuit and shrugs with his mouth half full.  
  
‘I’m not gay. I’m bi? But Seunghyun and I have been together for so long---’  
  
‘How long?’  
  
‘I don’t know. Fifteen years?’  
  
Jung-jin lurches forward, his chest bowing over the table in complete surprise.  
  
‘Fucking _what?’_  
  
Jiyong shrugs and takes another bite. He doesn’t say anything right away. It’s different talking to a stranger than it was talking to his sister or mother. For the first time, he feels a sense of pride that he and Seunghyun have been together for so long. He took Seunghyun off the market and _kept_ him off. Their longevity is something to be proud of. How many people have accomplished this time? With someone he doesn’t know, he can take pride in their secret life. Speaking to his family, the longevity of his relationship made him feel ashamed because he was supposed to confide in them earlier and he felt he let them down. But with a stranger? There’s no guilt. _  
_  
‘Fifteen years?’ Jung-jin questions. ‘What do you mean? Together, together _? Exclusive?_ ’ Jiyong nods and Jung-jin pulls a harrowed face of absolute confusion. ‘Holy fuck,’ he says. ‘That’s so _long._ How did you get away with it?’  
  
‘We were careful,’ Jiyong answers. ‘We never told anyone. Not even our families’.  
  
‘Shit. How many people know now?’  
  
‘My mother, my father, my sister …. And you,’ Jiyong answers, pointing a lax finger in his direction.  
  
Jung-jin’s eyebrows rise.  
  
‘Seunghyun hasn’t told his family yet,’ Jiyong explains with a smile, enjoying Jung-jin’s burgeoning discomfort. ‘You’re the first person on earth he’s ever confided in.’  
  
He allows himself to enjoy the colour draining from Jung-jin’s face. He lets him marinate in it for a while, really dwelling on his insane behaviour upstairs and how intrusive it actually was. _  
  
‘Me?’ _Jung-jin grimaces _._ ‘Shit. I really fucked up in the bedroom, huh.’  
  
Jiyong releases him from his torment and waves it off.  
  
‘He was planning on telling you anyway. You’re his test run. You seemed like a safe bet, I guess.’  
  
‘What does that mean?’  
  
Jiyong hesitates now.  He’s probably already said too much to this guy. Just because Seunghyun said the words _I’m gay_ \--- that doesn’t equal his whole confession. This whole conversation is Seunghyun’s right. He should get to speak about this. He should get to know what it's like to reveal a secret, happy life to someone who was unaware. He should get to feel the sense of release.  
  
At the same time, Jiyong doesn’t know how to be around this guy in the meantime if they don’t get this out of the way. What else can they talk about? The only thing they have in common is Seunghyun. There are only so many biscuits they can eat while staring at each other across a table.  
  
‘I’ll leave most of this conversation for Seunghyun,’ Jiyong says tentatively. ‘But I’ll tell you that we’ve kept this a secret for fifteen years. I only told my family six months ago,’ he says. ‘Now, I think Seunghyun’s ready to tell his family at last but he needs a practice run. He needs to tell someone who won’t disown him or---’ Jiyong shrugs, ‘If they do disown him, it won’t break his heart. We talked about it a few days before you called him. He thought it was a sign. He told me he was going to tell you when you came’.  
  
Jung-jin squints in confusion but it softens into acceptance.  
  
‘Test run,’ he says.  
  
‘Test run,’ Jiyong smiles.  
  
‘Well, I’m sorry it happened this way. I would have been a great first time. A high-five, a slap on the back,’ he says. ‘Me asking for the dirty details, but not _too_ detailed’.  
  
‘You can still do that,’ Jiyong answers. ‘Whenever he wakes up and wants to talk to you, just be his friend. This is ten years overdue. He needs someone to listen to him.’  
  
‘Yeah, I get it,’ Jung-jin answers sedately. ‘I’ll be his friend. That was always the plan’.  
  
Jiyong smiles appreciatively and shoves a third biscuit into his mouth. The whole thing at once. For a moment, he pauses with it stuck in his cheek. This is when Jung-jin decides to ask him a question.  
  
‘So, I was right. You guys live here together?’  
  
Jiyong nods and chews.  
  
‘How long have you been here?’ Jung-jin asks.  
  
Jiyong, with his mouth still full of food, raises his two hands and holds up his fingers, six at first. Then seven. Then six again. He can’t even remember.  
  
‘Wow, so you guys pretty much quit your jobs and eloped’.  
  
Jiyong swallows his biscuit finally and it scratches his throat. When he answers in the affirmative, his voice sounds gravelly. He stands up and coughs a few times.  
  
‘Yeah. But I need a drink,’ he says. ‘Do you want a beer?’  
  
‘Sure’.  
  
When he’s back at the table, he drinks half the bottle in one go. He’s earned it. Jung-jin takes a few swigs, asks a few more questions and Jiyong has to tell him the verbal vault is being sealed. He has to leave the rest of their story to Seunghyun, as surprisingly easy as it is telling a complete stranger private details. This is Seunghyun’s conversation.  
  
He remembers hearing the way Seunghyun spoke to his mother during their visit when he thought no one else was around. The way he spoke to her about the big moments they’d shared. He sounded happy. It was nice for Seunghyun to talk about those things for the first time, Jiyong could hear it in his voice. He should get to have that with someone he actually knows, somebody on _his_ side of the fence. So, no more history lessons.  
  
‘What about contemporary affairs?’ Jung-jin jests. ‘Can I ask about stuff that’s happening now?’  
  
‘Like what?’  
  
‘I don’t know. I have so many questions. You two were megastars and now you’re living in the forest in the middle of nowhere and nobody knows you’re here? I have to know more.’  
  
‘That’s really all there is to it.’  
  
‘But don’t you miss it? Celebrity?’  
  
Jiyong shakes his head derisively.  
  
‘It’s not everything it’s cracked up to be’.  
  
‘But isn’t it worth it after everything? It’s because of your celebrity that you can afford this enormous house. You’re set up for the rest of your life financially. Your parents too, right?’  
  
Jiyong frowns and shrugs.  
  
‘Seunghyun tried to kill himself twice since we debuted,’ Jiyong says seriously. ‘That’s not a secret. The media reported it both times. Both times he did that, it was a direct result of his celebrity. Is that worth it?’  
  
Jung-jin frowns and looks through the mouth of his beer bottle to break their eye contact.  
  
Jiyong thinks about his own long history in the spotlight and the last few years especially. The ones that almost killed him too. The ones that almost damaged his relationship with Seunghyun permanently. 2017 and everything that came after.  
  
He frowns, taken back to the worst year of his life. It was one nightmare after another. For the first time in a decade, he couldn’t lean on Seunghyun because he was going through his own nightmarish shit and they were on opposite sides of the planet. They could barely talk to each other on the phone. Whenever they did have time and got through, they were too embarrassed by their own problems they couldn’t speak. Things actually got worse after that, but then they were together or could talk to each other at least. Regular phone calls made all the difference. There was a light at the end of the tunnel.  
  
‘That’s why you guys left the city?’ Jung-jin asks tentatively. ‘To get away from the life?’  
  
‘It wasn’t the only reason but it was a big part of it’.  
  
Jung-jin nods appreciatively and changes his tone to start over.  
  
‘Well, how’s it going out here in nowhereseville then? Are you happy out here?’  
  
Jiyong raises the bottle to his lips but doesn’t drink. He means to say yes. Of course he does. Hasn’t being here with Seunghyun saved his life? Seunghyun’s proposal. His show of commitment by moving here. Their surprisingly easy go of it. The way they communicate better than ever before. The relaxation and sense of leisure rarely felt in their old life. The slowly reviving creativity. Hasn’t he woken up every day grateful for it all? They have been happy here. _He’s_ been happy here. But he doesn’t say anything. For some reason, he doesn’t say it.  
  
Jung-jin notes his hesitation and pulls a squeamish face.  
  
‘Uh-oh’.  
  
Jiyong shakes his head, not sure what to say or why he didn’t say what he should have said already. Happy? Maybe Seunghyun’s confession of loneliness has disturbed the sediment. Seunghyun went back to normal but Jiyong’s anxiety has increased. He can see the silt it kicked up wherever he looks. Life here had begun to feel like a dream, imperfect but moving effortlessly forward. Every day, things got easier, kinks were worked out, things talked out, problems simply went away. On the surface anyway.  
  
Then, Seunghyun said he was lonely here in this place where they see more of each other than ever before. Now, at _this_ point in their lives when they’re really discovering who they are, Seunghyun admitted the two of them aren’t enough to make a full life and Jiyong knows that’s true. He doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t know how that fits into their future.  
  
‘If you’re not happy here, what are you guys doing here?’  
  
‘I _am_ happy,’ Jiyong answers honestly. ‘But for how long? This can’t last forever.’  
  
Maybe that’s the crux of it. Hasn’t this been the one lingering thread since he first stepped into this house? Worrying about the future. Worrying about the expiry date. Worrying about what will happen if they get bored of one another. Worrying about whether or not this is _enough_ long-term. Seunghyun has asked him enough times to be present in the moment. _The future will work itself out._ But maybe it’s beginning to work itself out _now_. Isn’t Seunghyun admitting he’s lonely here the beginning of the end?  
  
‘Why can’t it?’ Jung-jin asks, taking another swig of his beer.  
  
Jiyong shrugs, trying to find the words for ideas he has never allowed to coalesce. Trying to pull together all the threads of his fear and bitterness. All the resurfaced resentments brought back by Youngbae’s impending family. All the dreams he’s had to give up in order to achieve others. His guilt from knowing he has almost _everything_ and still feels like that’s not enough.  
  
‘Seunghyun is lonely here,’ Jiyong says. ‘That’s how we started talking about him telling his family. He said he was lonely here because _we’re_ not enough. Just the two of us? Almost but not quite,’ he says, taking a drink. ‘And he’s right. I know that. We can’t live in isolation for the rest of our lives’.  
  
‘So you’ll move back to the city eventually, or somewhere else. Does location matter?’  
  
Jiyong’s throat dries up and he realises how close to the surface his pain really is. He can’t talk about these things with Seunghyun because he’s afraid of the consequences. He’s afraid of disturbing something just right. Of tipping the scales somehow.  
  
‘If we move back to the city, that means going back to our old life or something like it,’ Jiyong says.  
  
‘You mean celebrity?’  
  
‘I mean our personal lives,’ Jiyong clarifies. ‘We go back to the city and go back in the closet? We go back to being careful 24/7? We go back to being surrounded by people who don’t really _know_ us? The best part of living here is finally being ourselves,’ he says. ‘We can kiss on the driveway, we can take walks together, I can hold his hand outside, we can fuck without being quiet, we can shout at each other without worrying about the neighbours’.  
  
Jung-jin nods like he understands but this is just the tip of the iceberg here. Jiyong takes another drink and continues, letting everything out because he has no reason not to.  
  
‘If we go back to Seoul, we immediately become a question mark again. _Why aren’t they settling down? Where’s the girlfriend? Where’s the wife?_ Everyone I know is married or about to be. Half of my friends have kids,’ he says. ‘When we leave here, we’re immediately back in a place where we don’t measure up. Where everyone else is moving on with their lives and we’re permanently stuck in the same place because we can’t _go_ any further.’  
  
Jung-jin frowns in confusion and Jiyong doesn’t know if this straight man living in a liberal city can fully grasp what he means. To feel like he’s already gone as far as he can go.  
  
‘The key to happiness is work,’ Jiyong explains. ‘Not for money. Working towards things. Goals. Milestones. Working towards big moments in life, going from one to the next,’ he says, moving his finger from one point on the table to another. ‘That’s what makes people happy. Half the joy of being in a relationship and loving somebody is reaching those moments you can only experience _together_. But it feels like Seunghyun and I have gone as far as we can go. All the milestones we can reach together, we’ve already accomplished. The world won’t let us go any further. We’re not allowed to get married. We’re not allowed to have kids. What we are now is all we’ll ever be. So what’s next?’ Jiyong shrugs. ‘I don’t know what the rest of our lives look like. For how long will this be enough?’  
  
A tear rolls down his cheek unexpectedly and he wipes it away, embarrassed.  
  
Jung-jin, this guy he barely knows, looks at him with sympathy and that makes Jiyong feel worse. It makes him feel ungrateful and selfish. _Man who has everything wants more._ Isn’t that the headline?  
  
‘Spend the rest of your lives doing whatever makes you happy,’ Jung-jin suggests. ‘Explore your passions together. Does there have to be a next step in the relationship? You’re obviously in a secure place. Most people never get that. Just enjoy _life_ together. Try new things. You must have interests to pursue. Seunghyun said he wants to open a gallery, right? What about you?’  
  
‘I don’t know,’ Jiyong shrugs. ‘Music is the only thing I saw myself doing forever.’  
  
‘Isn’t that your answer?’  
  
‘If I could make music without the media whipping the public into a hateful frenzy, I’d be doing it right now,’ he says. ‘But I can’t have one without the other. I can live my passion and risk complete emotional destruction in the process, or I can stay away and survive’.  
  
Jung-jin shakes his head in amazement and takes another swig of his beer.  
  
‘I’ll never understand this country. Everyone’s desperate to act in this national morality play. It’s all bullshit. Everyone knows it’s bullshit. I don’t get it,’ he sighs. ‘People resent those who seem to have everything. That’s all it is, right? Have you thought about making music for other people? That way, you can do the work without being the public face of it.’  
  
‘I _want_ to sing. I want to make music for myself. Why should I give my life to someone else to sing about? I used to enjoy making music for other people, but only on the side. It wouldn’t satisfy me if that’s all I was allowed to have. It wouldn’t be enough’.  
  
‘You have no other hobbies? Nothing else you want to explore and pursue? You’re still young, you can do anything you want. Seunghyun hasn’t rubbed off on you? You don’t want to dabble in the art world?’  
  
Jiyong laughs quietly, looking at a painting on the far wall that he painted.  
  
‘I like art but I’m not Seunghyun. I like collecting and I like painting but those aren’t careers. It doesn’t feel like a calling the way it does for Seunghyun. It’s just a way I can express myself. It used to be an offshoot of music; they went hand in hand. Now, I’m overcompensating and putting all my energy into it because it feels like the only safe way to express myself. It’s like therapy. It’s not my life’s goal’.  
  
Jiyong points out some of the paintings hanging around the place that he made and hung himself.  
  
‘That’s how I keep myself sane now,’ Jiyong says. ‘I paint. But I don’t want the rest of my life to be dedicated to something I do as an escape.’  
  
Jung-jin folds his arms and leans back in his chair. He exhales deeply through his nose like he’s lost in thought. When he finally does speak, his question is simple but it sounds thoughtful, like he’s genuinely engaged in the conversation.  
  
‘So what do you really want?’ he asks. ‘In a _perfect world_ , what should happen for you in the next five years to make you genuinely happy? If you could have and do anything’.  
  
Jiyong hesitates to answer. He takes his time. When he does open his mouth, he isn’t sure what he’ll say but the words come regardless.  
  
‘I want to make music without people praying for my downfall,’ Jiyong says quietly with a wistful smile. ‘I want Seunghyun to get what he wants out of life. I want him to open his own gallery. I want him to get the respect he craves from this art world he loves. I want us to be happy together. I want to marry him some day. I want to tell everyone I care about that I have a life they don’t know about,’ Jiyong says. ‘I guess that’s all. I just want to do my job and be happy when I come home. I want to be myself. I don’t want to live a lie forever.’  
  
Jung-Jin raises an eyebrow and Jiyong stares at the table in resignation. It all sounds nice in theory, but it doesn’t feel like _enough_. Mulling it over, the prospect of his entire future being summed up in these few sentences feels like a miserable eventuality. It shouldn’t. Being happy is all anyone really wants. What’s wrong with hoping for it? Maybe he’s just leaving things out, not being honest with himself.  
  
‘I want a cat too,’ Jiyong says in addition, feeling tired. ‘I want something else in the house that I can love and that will love me. Seunghyun gets lonely here sometimes. Maybe I do too’.  
  
His last cat was beautiful but she died of cancer before her time. It broke his heart too much to get another one. On cold nights here when it rains or there’s frost covering the ground in the mornings, he wishes she was still around. He misses her warmth in the mornings, curled against him beneath the covers. He misses her walking on his head in the middle of the night. He misses talking to her in a childish voice, doting on her with toys and treats. He misses the signs of destruction around the house and never loving her less regardless.  
  
Jiyong slumps in his chair and looks at what parts of the house he can see from his chair. It is still divested of his personal items, so it looks more sterile and austere than usual. Maybe this is what Seunghyun’s home would look like without him, like some adjunct room of a contemporary museum. It doesn’t feel lived in. It doesn’t feel like it _could_ be lived in. In this perfect box there can be no housewarming parties, no birthdays, no big celebrations. No pets rolling onto their backs for a belly rub. No children screaming as they jump from one couch to another. He frowns and empty walls seem to fold in on themselves. A lump forms in his throat and his eyes water.  
  
‘I want kids,’ he says emotionally. ‘That’s what I really want. That would make me happy.’  
  
‘And that’s not on the table?’  
  
‘That’s not even in the same house.’  
  
‘Why not? Adopt one’.  
  
Jiyong rolls his eyes in lieu of answer and waves it off. It would be difficult enough to adopt a child as a single man if he went that route, impossible if he were in a gay relationship and chose honesty. He could get a beard to pretend to be his partner but that would backfire eventually. If he ever _did_ adopt, the public attention and scrutiny would inevitably uncover the truth anyway and the child would suffer. So what is left? A devoted friend willing to act as a surrogate? To carry a child for 9 months and then hand it over? To stay in isolation for the rest of their lives because that’s the only way to protect their family?  
  
‘The only way is to wait for the law to change or to emigrate, and I don’t want to do that,’ Jiyong says.  
  
‘Maybe you _should_ if life is so full of barriers here. What’s so great about Korea? I don’t live here. I’m doing fine’.  
  
Jiyong smiles. He can’t deny that Jung-Jin seems perfectly happy in his adoptive country. His personality and language and mannerisms are all obvious signs he doesn’t live here, and maybe he’s better off. He seems freer and less burdened by expectation. He isn’t worried about what he should be doing, only what he is. He is living for himself.  
  
‘I _like_ Korea,’ Jiyong answers, having a drink in homage. ‘Maybe I have Stockholm syndrome. I don’t want to leave. I want to be here with Seunghyun. This is our home. This is where our families are. It’s where our own family should be, if we could have one,’ he says. Then, thoughtfully, he realises the simple truth encompassing all of it. All his little pains. ‘I think I’m just starting to realise the perfect future I wanted for us will always have holes in it that we can’t fill,’ he says. ‘There will always be things missing from our lives’.  
  
Jung-Jin offers a sympathetic grimace and puffs out his cheeks, exhaling his breath slowly like air escaping a balloon. It’s an overwrought gesture.  
  
‘Well, that is a _lot_ to tell a house guest,’ he says.  
  
Jiyong smiles and shrugs, bringing the bottle to his lips again. He finishes his beer and drops it back down to the table.  
  
‘It’s all fun and games at chez Kwon. Or is it chez Choi?’  
  
‘Chez GD & TOP,’ Jung-Jin answers, picking his own beer up. ‘A house of sickness and despair’.  
  
Jiyong erupts into tipsy laughter and Jung-Jin joins him.  
  
  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
  
  
An hour later, Jiyong is at the bottom of his third beer and Jung-jin his fourth. They have long since moved onto other conversational topics. Slightly drunk, they have more to talk about than they did while sober. Jung-jin tells a stream of insane but believable stories about Seunghyun’s adventures in Europe and Jiyong tells his own stories. Some of them are embarrassing but the overwhelming vibe of their exchange is mutual appreciation and love. Seunghyun is eccentric and unpredictable like a square in a round hole, but life is better for it.  
  
When the bell rings upstairs, Jiyong almost doesn’t hear it because he’s laughing so hard. The tinny sound bounces around inside his head though, and he stops laughing immediately. He stands up from the table too quickly and his head spins a little. He is halfway drunk. Still, he excuses himself from the table and mounts the stairs.  
  
Seunghyun looks tired and sweaty like before, but he smiles weakly when Jiyong enters the room. Jiyong smiles back, relieved to see an expression on his face other than discomfort. He feels such a swell of love for him. He sits on the bed beside him and feels his forehead. The room only spins a little.  
  
‘Are you drunk?’ Seunghyun whispers. His voice is so rough and croaky, he can barely speak.  
  
‘No. Are you okay?’ Jiyong asks. ‘What do you need? What can I do?’  
  
‘Water? I’m so thirsty,’ Seunghyun answers.  
  
‘Sure. Yeah. Hang on a second.’  
  
Jiyong rises from the bed but Seunghyun catches his wrist and tugs him back down. Jiyong waits for another request or for Seunghyun to say something else but he doesn’t. For a moment, they just look at each other and maybe it’s the beer but Seunghyun looks at him in this sad knowing way. It makes Jiyong want to get away from him.  
  
Then the expression changes and Seunghyun’s tired fingers wrap around his forearm and his thumb strokes Jiyong’s skin in this gentle, delicate way and it feels so nice to be connected to him, to have Seunghyun reach out to him, to be reminded of the present.  
  
Seunghyun looks at him imploringly and his barely-there voice forms the words, _I love you_. It’s so earnest and sounds so desperate, Jiyong wonders where it’s coming from. If Seunghyun has felt so completely unwell that he’s now grateful just to _see_ him, just to be reminded that he’s still alive? Jiyong feels ashamed for sitting downstairs, complaining about their lives.  
  
Seunghyun coughs again, a chain of them that still sound completely disgusting and painful and awful and Jiyong holds _his_ arm instead, rubbing circles into the inside of Seunghyun’s forearm. When Seunghyun finishes coughing and shakes his head in frustration, Jiyong leans down and plants a kiss on his forehead.  
  
‘I love you,’ he says.  
  
He kisses the side of Seunghyun’s temple and then his cheekbone and then he moves to kiss his lips but Seunghyun holds him back with a hand on his chest.  
  
‘You’ll get sick’.  
  
Jiyong raises his eyebrows and shrugs, gently removing Seunghyun’s hand. He kisses Seunghyun on the lips and lingers before pulling back.  
  
‘I don’t care,’ he smiles.  
  
And he doesn’t. Because as much as he fears the future--- he has that fear because he loves this man and he loves their life and the thought of it not being perfect sometimes paralyses him. It comes from a place of love. It comes from being willing to do anything to keep this life, to see Seunghyun happy and well.  
  
_‘I love you,’_ Jiyong whispers again.  
  
Sick or not, who gives a shit. Seunghyun smiles pitifully, still dotted with sweat and visibly uncomfortable. Jiyong kisses his shoulder for good measure and rises again.  
  
‘I’ll get you some water and something to eat. I’ll be right back’.  
  
_‘Wait’.  
  
_Jiyong pauses and Seunghyun grimaces, his words coming out with more difficulty than his last ones. Jiyong has to strain to hear him.  
  
‘Did I tell him?’  
  
Jiyong smiles and lowers his voice.  
  
‘You did. You said, _‘I’m gay, surprise!’_ Jiyong imitates his tone. ‘Then you told us to leave because we were too noisy.’  
  
_‘Oh’._  
  
Seunghyun closes his eyes for a moment and sighs, stifling a cough.  
  
‘What did he say?’  
  
Jiyong waits for Seunghyun to open his eyes to say in a quiet voice.  
  
‘He’s still very much your friend’.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this isn't what I wanted to write and it's all kind of weird and ... ehh. Feels a bit depressing. I know what everyone wanted to happen in this chapter didn't happen (seunghyun's big talk), but I'm adding an extra part to this so don't be too mad. And I promise all of this mopey stuff has a purpose. It sets up the next 'part' in the series (the last one) and the good stuff is coming.


	3. Chapter 3

  
  
  
Seunghyun’s recovery is slow but the 24 hours around his fainting are the worst of his crippling sickness. After that, there are signs of improvement each day. A chest infection of some kind is all but confirmed. Seunghyun coughs so hard and so frequently, there isn’t a five-minute window when he can’t be heard gasping for air. His coughs tear out of him. They sound painful and they _are_ painful. Jiyong can only get him to eat sporadic soft foods, mostly ice-cream to soothe his throat as it goes down.  
  
Jung-jin extends his trip a few days so he and Seunghyun can talk, and they do. The day after Seunghyun’s confession, Jiyong is left alone downstairs for most of the day while Jung-jin keeps Seunghyun company. He gives them their privacy. Seunghyun being able to talk about his _actual_ life with someone is long overdue. Every now and then Jiyong hears a hoarse, croaky laugh and marvels at how incredibly easy Seunghyun’s coming out has actually been.  
  
In between their long conversations, Seunghyun crashes. For every few hours of conversation and company, he has to sleep triple and eventually double to recover, desperately needing rest and sleep. Maybe he was run-down to begin with. It explains how he became sick so easily and so quickly. He has been working hard lately. Perhaps this was his bodies way of demanding he stay in bed and slow down.  
  
When Jung-jin isn’t with Seunghyun, talking about who knows what, he is downstairs. Over the course of the week, Jiyong figures out how to talk to him better. They manage to graduate from small talk to more substantial conversation, but out of habit a lot of their talks still come back to Seunghyun in some way. Still, it isn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it’s nice to be himself around a stranger. It’s like visiting a parallel universe where he’s a regular person that nobody knows. Exploring a life where secrets aren’t necessary for survival. It’s rejuvenating.  
  
On the third day, Seunghyun can finally get out of bed but he spends most of the day on the lounge with a blanket around him. It’s like a teenage sleepover. They eat together, they watch films occasionally, they find things to talk about as a trio. Now and then, Seunghyun says something private about their life and Jiyong relishes the luxury of doing that. It’s only unwelcome when Seunghyun makes a joke about sex that alludes to their own sex life and Jiyong and Jung-jin choke on their drink at the same time. Seunghyun’s hoarse laugh at their reaction is so nice to hear, Jiyong forgives him instantly.  
  
On the fourth day, the snow has mostly melted and the internet is back up and running. Jung-jin puts on a French film he wants them both to see. Without thinking about it, Jiyong sits next to Seunghyun, sharing the blanket with him. As the film drags on, Seunghyun sinks into his side and by the time it ends, they are lying next to each other, with Jiyong’s chin resting on Seunghyun’s head so he can still see.  
  
Jung-jin does this weird laugh in his throat when he sees them, but it’s well-meaning. There genuinely isn’t any disgust or malice in him. He truly doesn’t give a shit about this part of their life that others would string them up for. Jiyong is grateful for it and Seunghyun more so. His comfort and appreciation is palpable.  
  
Over a few days, Seunghyun’s coughing becomes less frequent and hoarse. He eats more and needs to sleep less during the day. On the fifth night, lying in bed in the dark, Seunghyun’s voice, almost back to normal, breaks the silence.  
  
‘I never thought it would be like this.’  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘Telling someone. I didn’t think it would ever be … normal.’  
  
Jiyong, half asleep, wraps an arm around Seunghyun’s waist and moves a little closer to him.  
  
‘I’m happy for you. You’ve got good friends.’  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
Then, two days later, Seunghyun’s good friend has to leave finally and Jiyong is sorry for it. Happy to have the house to themselves again and to get back to their routine, he still feels sorry for Seunghyun having to let go of this important moment in time. Seunghyun has seemed unburdened and hopeful the last few days. Jung-jin leaving could make this week feel like a dream, like it never happened at all. Life, back to normal.  
  
He doesn't ask Seunghyun what he spoke to Jung-jin about, or if he got to share the history of his secret life and their relationship with him. He knows their conversations were meaningful. Even if they only talked about basic things, the simple act of talking freely is a gift Seunghyun has appreciated.  
  
Jiyong can only compare it to talking to his sister. Even with his parents knowing, he could never talk to them too freely, except the one time his mother cornered him about safe sex. Talking with Dami is different. Still holding back in some ways, he can tell her almost anything. Knowing he can do that—that he has someone he can turn to to talk about Seunghyun or their life--- is important. Now, in some small way, Seunghyun has experienced it for himself.  
  
So, when Jung-jin stands at the front door with his bags in the car, Jiyong isn’t surprised at all to watch the hug that precedes him leaving. Seunghyun _bear hugs_ Jung-jin. His arms lock around him and hold him there longer than a regular hug. He really _squeezes_ him, and Jung-jin pats Seunghyun’s back. Not in a condescending way. It’s genuine.  
  
Jiyong hugs him too, a much briefer, more contained hug. But he is sincere in trying to get his thanks across. He tried to articulate it when they were alone the night before his departure, but all he could say was a confusing thanks for being a nice person. He is grateful to have had this experience but he is more grateful on Seunghyun’s behalf. He would do _anything_ for Seunghyun, even die for him, but there are some things he will never be able to do for him. To have someone else pick up the slack when needed is a relief.  
  
_‘Try_ and stay out of trouble.’  
  
These are Jung-jin’s parting words, said in a way that makes Jiyong side-eye Seunghyun, like Jung-jin knows something he doesn’t. Still, it makes Jiyong happy. He wants Seunghyun to retain his unpredictable mischievous qualities. He doesn’t want him to work so hard that he loses his sense of fun.  
  
Seunghyun’s reply is equally eyebrow raising. He shrugs and answers in a still croaky but cavalier tone.  
  
‘We’ll see.’  
  
Jiyong looks between them and wonders what went on upstairs, but he waves goodbye with a genuine smile when Jung-jin pulls out of the driveway and lowers the window to yell a final farewell.  
  
And then he’s gone.  
  
Seunghyun sighs when Jung-jin is finally out of sight and Jiyong catches a flash of sadness on his face. He reaches out to squeeze his hand but Seunghyun doesn’t squeeze back. Not really.  
  
Jiyong chalks it up to that inevitable feeling of sadness when someone leaves at the tail end of a vacation. That momentary feeling of misery at saying goodbye. Everyone gets that.  
  
‘I thought I would feel different,’ Seunghyun says absently that night. ‘After telling him. But I don’t think I do. I feel the same.’  
  
  
  
* * *

 

For a few days afterwards, they fall back into their routines. Seunghyun goes to work a few times, Jiyong paints and writes and talks to friends on the phone. Seunghyun cooks one night and they share a bottle of wine. On the weekend, they go for a walk together and manage to fill the silence with conversation. On the surface, life goes back to normal.  
  
Underneath? Jiyong doesn’t know. When Jung-Jin leaves, it’s like he takes something with him. That sigh Seunghyun first gave starts to feel less like some fleeting sadness and more indicative of something real.

  
The more time they spend together, the more Jiyong feels he Seunghyun are suddenly play-acting. Like for the first time in a long time they’re not being honest with each other. Like they’re _withholding_ something. What? He doesn’t know. It’s such a new and strange feeling, it makes Jiyong uncomfortable. It starts to feel like every word spoken between them is covering something else. Like every conversation is the surface layer of some deeper, unspoken _thing_. He doesn’t understand it.  
  
He tries to explain or rationalise the barely-there tension. After all, he wasn’t himself last week. Seunghyun’s confession of loneliness and Jung-jin’s presence brought certain things to the surface. Worries about their future. For days, he was racked with tension and anxiety, trying to shove those feelings back in their cage. He feels himself again now, but maybe there’s still something there. Or maybe he feels guilty for having those feelings in the first place and that’s clouding their interactions.

  
Is that all it is? Is this new strangeness between them simply that? Or does Seunghyun have his own things to hide? Maybe he’s just processing what he’s been through. Even though his coming out went as well as you could hope, it’s still an intense experience. Once the afterglow wears off too, you realize it’s something you will have to repeat over and over again, to all the people in your life. Jiyong felt that. Maybe Seunghyun is mulling that reality over too or planning his next step. Maybe, Seunghyun is understandably preoccupied and it’s creating a feeling of distance.

 

Or, maybe there’s no problem at all. Maybe it’s all in his head. Whatever the reason for the weirdness, Jiyong tries to compensate. He works harder to force normal conversations. He is especially attentive when he thinks Seunghyun will be receptive and he backs off when he thinks otherwise. To his dismay, no matter what he does or how well some interactions and conversations seem to go, this strange feeling persists--- like they’re holding something back. Like a thin, invisible wall has been erected between them.

  
* * *

 

  
A few days later, Jiyong finds Seunghyun in the bedroom folding laundry. He seems especially distant today. In the morning, they ate together and every attempt at conversation seemed to fizzle out and go nowhere. Seunghyun barely ate. Then, at lunch time, he said he had errands to run and was gone for hours without any real explanation. When he came back, he did a load of washing.  
  
Jiyong finds himself slowly going crazy at this mix of normalcy and strangeness. The way everything seems fine on the outside but feels the opposite. He stands in the bedroom watching Seunghyun pull clothes from the basket, delicately folding them on the bed. Seunghyun handles Jiyong’s clothes with care and attention.  
  
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Seunghyun says without looking up. ‘Maybe we should get a pet’.  
  
It’s the first conversation Seunghyun has initiated in two days and this is what he says? Jiyong grimaces in confusion.  
  
_‘What?’_  
  
‘I saw a sign outside someone’s house. They’re selling puppies.’  
  
Jiyong frowns. There’s some strange distance between them but Seunghyun wants to get a pet? They can hardly carry a normal conversation this week. It doesn’t make any sense to suggest this with no warning.  
  
‘Or we could get a cat,’ Seunghyun says.  
  
The thought of getting a cat makes Jiyong yearn but it quickly abates because there’s something about the way Seunghyun looks up and then quickly away. He makes and breaks eye contact like he feels guilty about something. It’s a recognisable tell.  
  
‘You don’t like cats,’ Jiyong says simply, and it’s true. Seunghyun came to love his old cat but it wasn’t innate. He’s a dog person if anything.  
  
Seunghyun shrugs and they look at each other. Jiyong feels that feeling now, so strongly. It’s like they’re roommates just getting to know each other, trying to figure out ways of coexisting. It’s disconcerting because Jiyong _knows_ Seunghyun. He knows him better than anyone on Earth, yet here they are with this inexplicable _thing_ between them, making all their interactions feel disingenuous. It feels like they’re both waiting for the other to say something specific but he doesn’t know what.  
  
‘I have no problem with cats,’ Seunghyun says. ‘If you want one, let’s get one’.  
  
‘But I didn’t _say_ I wanted one’.  
  
Seunghyun sighs and his hand stills. For a moment, a shirt hangs limp from his fingers before falling back into the basket.  
  
‘I thought it would be nice to have an animal around for company. Aren’t you lonely here?’  
  
‘What?’ Jiyong asks, genuinely confused. ‘Why would you say that?’  
  
Seunghyun frowns and immediately this vague ripple of distress becomes apparent. Jiyong gets the feeling he’s disappointed. Like Seunghyun expected him to understand the hidden root of this conversation.  
  
Sure, maybe Jiyong feels lonely sometimes but he didn’t realise he was sending out signals strong enough for Seunghyun to feel _compelled_ to get a pet. Seunghyun shrugs, frowning deeper. He waves it off and shakes his head.  
  
‘Forget it. I must have misunderstood.’  
  
‘Misunderstood what?’ Jiyong asks tentatively. ‘Was I talking in my sleep?’  
  
Seunghyun doesn’t answer and it’s now that Jiyong feels this invisible chasm open up  between them. These vague, elusive feelings of distance he’s been sensing. All the little signs. All his paranoia that something was happening he couldn’t quite explain. Somehow, this is the moment he knows it’s unmistakably _real_.  
  
‘What’s going on?’ Jiyong asks directly. ‘Something has been _off_ between us all week and I don’t know what it is. It’s driving me crazy. Something’s happening here,’ he says, gesturing between them. ‘What _is_ it? What is this?’  
  
Seunghyun grimaces, confirming Jiyong’s fears that this isn’t some silly fantasy in his mind. Seunghyun pushes the clothes basket aside and sits on the end of the bed, clasping his hands together in his lap. It’s an ominous gesture but he looks up when he speaks and a crack in the barrier forms because Seunghyun tells the truth.  
  
‘Last week, when I—’ he rolls his eyes, embarrassed, ‘ _fainted_. I heard you talking to Jung-jin.’  
  
Jiyong shrugs, lost for a moment.  
  
‘What are you talking about? Heard what?’  
  
Seunghyun bites his lip briefly. It’s a tic. A way to psych himself up.  
  
‘You were talking about what was missing in our lives,’ Seunghyun says. ‘All the things you’ll never have if you stay in this relationship. You said you don’t know what our future looks like.’ He sounds genuinely pained and disappointed. ‘You said we’ve already done everything we can do together.’  
  
Jiyong’s lips part in surprise. Parts of that sound familiar but the way Seunghyun is saying them twists their meaning. It makes him sound unhappy and heartless and Seunghyun’s expression shows he took them that way, at least partially. That in the middle of his crippling illness, he heard complaints about their life and waited more than a week to say something. It’s crazy. It makes no sense to act this way now. For _days_ after that conversation, they were interacting like normal. What about Jung-jin leaving made this suddenly become an issue?  
  
‘Seunghyun, that’s not what I was saying. That’s not how I meant any of that.’  
  
‘You said you were incomplete.’  
  
‘I know I didn’t say that’.  
  
‘Didn’t you imply it?’  
  
‘Didn’t you?’ Jiyong retorts quickly. The overall vibe of that conversation with Jung-jin comes back to him. Even if he doesn’t remember his words, he knows his reasons for saying them. He remembers how he felt. ‘You started it,’ Jiyong says. ‘You told me you were lonely because nobody knows you, because you and I aren’t _enough_. And I know what you meant,’ Jiyong says. ‘We can’t be this way for the rest of our lives. We need more than _us_ alone in a forest in the middle of nowhere. You implied that. That’s all I was talking about, Seunghyun. I was just acknowledging something you already brought up.’  
  
Seunghyun shakes his head in disbelief.  
  
‘Jiyong, I told you I felt lonely sometimes because I have nobody to _talk_ to. I didn’t say our life together was full of holes. I didn’t say we’ve already reached our conclusion. You did. You made it sound like we can’t be happy here much longer and that we can’t go back to Seoul and be happy either,’ he says. ‘Do you not see a happy future for us at all?’  
  
‘What the fuck, Seunghyun. Where is this coming from? Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it like that.’  
  
‘Didn’t you? You’re always anticipating problems,’ Seunghyun says tiredly. ‘I don’t know why. Are you looking for them? To what end? How many times do we have to have this conversation?’  
  
‘I don’t know why we’re having it now,’ Jiyong answers, defensively. ‘Nothing I said was the way you’re making it sound. I had a lot on my mind that day. I was _stressed_. Telling me you were lonely brought up a lot of stuff for me. I have fears, okay? There are things I worry about and sometimes I have to talk about them. It helps me figure things out. If I anticipate problems, I can avoid them or I can fix them.’  
  
‘What about problems that can’t be fixed?’  
  
‘Everything can be fixed’.  
  
Seunghyun frowns and looks down at his hands, digging his thumb into his opposite palm. It’s a tense gesture.  
  
‘What about the fact we’ll never have kids?’ he asks.  
  
For Jiyong, these words are like a kick to the stomach. A little rush of air escapes him, a little gasp of surprise. He never wanted Seunghyun to hear that. It was something they agreed never to talk about, not in so many words, it was just implicitly understood. An unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t let that come between them. That they wouldn’t talk about it. Ever.  
  
Jiyong’s lips part to say something but he can’t, because what can he say? Even if he doesn’t remember his exact words, he knows he talked to Jung-jin about wanting kids. He knows what he said. That he’ll never have them. That it’s impossible. Seunghyun’s right, isn’t he? It’s a problem that can’t be fixed and his way of dealing with it has always been to suppress it. To distract himself. To lock it away somewhere. How do you overcome a problem with no solution?  
  
‘Do you resent me for it?’ Seunghyun asks suddenly. ‘That we can’t have kids?’  
  
Jiyong frowns and his heart splits down the middle. He almost feels it, like a tangible heartbreak. He feels a lot of things about not being able to have kids, but he’ll never feel resentment.  
  
‘No,’ he answers quickly. ‘How could I?’  
  
Seunghyun smiles in a small, tentative way, barely there. But his hurt expression doesn’t change. His voice becomes softer and more persuasive, like he’s guiding Jiyong into a cage.  
  
‘But it _is_ a problem that we can’t have them?’  
  
‘No! It doesn’t _matter,_ ’ Jiyong urges. ‘It’s one thing. It doesn’t change anything between us. It doesn’t change how I feel about you. It doesn’t change me wanting to spend my life with you. Forget it’.  
  
‘Can _you_?’ Seunghyun asks. ‘Maybe you can forget about it this week but for how long? Maybe you were right. Maybe this will be a problem in the future.’  
  
‘Seunghyun, I never said that. Don’t tell me how I feel.’  
  
Jiyong is stunned. Is this what Seunghyun’s problem has been? Jung-jin left and he immediately began dwelling on some overheard conversation? Inflating it, adding things to it in his mind, building it up into an enormous, misunderstood problem? For days after that conversation with Jung-jin, Seunghyun was normal with him. Why is he acting like this _now?_ Why didn’t he say anything sooner?  
  
‘Tell me,’ Seunghyun answers, standing up. ‘Tell me how you feel. This is our chance to finally have this conversation. Tell me it’s a problem that we can’t have kids. Tell me the truth.’  
  
_‘Why?_ ’ Jiyong asks.  
  
‘Because we’ve never talked about this and we can’t ignore it anymore.'  
  
Jiyong shrugs, unable to say the words. This whole thing is insane, but there’s some truth to what Seunghyun is saying. He can lock his yearning need to have a family away for now, but it will come up again. It has been popping into his head more and more often the older he gets. Won’t it be all the more difficult when Youngbae’s child is born? When he sees the love on Youngbae’s face and hears the stories and sees the pictures? When he holds Youngbae’s child in his arms and feels its little fingers wrap around his own? How will he feel then?  
  
‘You’ve wanted kids since you were a teenager,’ Seunghyun says. ‘In one of the first conversations we ever had, when I barely knew you, you said in ten years-time you’d be a famous singer with a wife and two kids. You talked about it incessantly. When we started dating, you stopped talking about it.’  
  
‘Isn’t that the point?’ Jiyong asks.  
  
‘Not if you kept _thinking_ about it. Not if you only stopped talking about it because you didn’t want to have this conversation.’  
  
‘I don’t know what this conversation _is._ ’  
  
‘A reality check.’  
  
‘For _what?’_  
  
‘ _Us,’_ Seunghyun answers. ‘We need to talk about whether this will affect us or not.’  
  
Jiyong scoffs, frustrated by this feeling of going in circles while standing still. He’s surprised by how quickly he is losing his temper.  
  
‘I already told you to forget about it. _It’s one thing’_.  
  
‘Jiyong, we can’t brush it aside. We can’t deal with it until you tell the truth. Be _honest_.’  
  
‘I am!’ Jiyong snaps. ‘You’re not listening to me.’  
  
‘With me, you will _never_ have kids,’ Seunghyun says suddenly, harshly, trying to provoke him. ‘ _Never._ All your friends will have families. You’ll watch their kids grow up. You’ll watch them start pre-school, high-school, college. You’ll never know what that feels like,’ he says. ‘You’ll never know what that _love_ feels like. When you are old and grey, there won’t be any children to take care of you. No children of your own to love you. No grandchildren to visit you. Nothing. If we stay together, when we are old it’s just you and me alone,’ Seunghyun says, ‘exactly as we are now. Nothing will change. This dream of yours? It will never happen. _Never._ ’  
  
Jiyong is stunned into breathless silence. It’s like a slap in the face. Seunghyun’s heartlessness surprises him. His stomach aches and his eyes begin to water. His heart pounds in his chest because none of it is a lie. Seunghyun is acting like a fucking monster, but he isn’t lying.  
  
‘Isn’t that a problem?’ Seunghyun goads him. ‘You,’ he says slowly, enunciating every word carefully, ‘will _never_ have kids.’  
  
Jiyong lashes out. He can’t help it. It bursts out of him so suddenly he couldn’t stop it if he tried. He shoves Seunghyun away, so violently that Seunghyun stumbles back onto the bed. For a moment, Jiyong is shocked by his own actions— then he sees the blankness on Seunghyun’s face and he doesn’t know how to feel. He doesn’t know if he’s furious or heartbroken or both at once. Whatever he is, he _aches_. He wipes a sudden tear from his cheek and nods, trying to find the words--- _any_ words.  
  
‘Yes,’ he says shakily. ‘It’s a fucking _problem.’  
_  
He shakes his head and leaves the room, leaving Seunghyun where he is.

 

* * *  
  
  
  
It’s a cruel irony maybe that he finds himself sitting in the greenhouse, Seunghyun’s fortress of solitude, to deal with his anger _at_ Seunghyun, but it feels appropriate to be somewhere cold and gloomy. The plants help to calm him and the grey, chill sky showing through the misty glass appeals to his misery. Because he is miserable.  
  
He confessed his disappointment about not having kids and Seunghyun’s response was to poke and prod the hole to make it larger? He didn’t plan on blurting everything out to Jung-jin, it just happened. The wanting children issue wasn’t something he was ever going to raise with Seunghyun. Not every problem _has_ a fix. Some things you just have to live with. Don’t they both know that? Haven’t they both had to learn that lesson individually a hundred times over? Some things are best left unsaid. Yelling them in a quiet room won’t change them.  
  
So why would Seunghyun force him to do that? What did he say last week that was so horrible? Whatever he said to Jung-jin must have come from the right place. He wasn’t trying to complain about their life, he was just lamenting some of the ways life has been unfair to them. What’s wrong with that? Everyone vents. His life with Seunghyun isn’t perfect but their problems are usually external, not coming from within. If Seunghyun was eavesdropping, he should have done a better job. Context matters.  
  
Even drunk at the time, he remembers Seunghyun holding onto his arm that night when he was ill. The way he said _I love you_ like it was imperative he hear it. Was this why? He heard something and took it the wrong way? Jiyong huffs and a tendril of steam fades in the air in front of him. It’s still freezing even now the snow has gone. He frowns, digging his hands into his pockets.  
  
Seunghyun’s voice rings in his ears. _You will never have children. Never. Never. Never._ And Jiyong shakes them away but they come back and start plucking at his nerves. He thinks about Youngbae, who texted him this-morning, a picture of his unborn baby’s hand leaving an imprint on Hyorin’s stomach. It was grotesque in a way, like an alien life trying to break free, but that was Youngbae’s _child_. Despite the infinite updates over the past few weeks, Jiyong has only sometimes grasped the reality of that. That within the month, Youngbae will have a living, breathing, crying, tangible child. A child who will be with him for the rest of his life.  
  
He feels some distance open between them just thinking about it because children change things. Without having one of his own, there will always be parts of Youngbae’s life that he has no access to, that he can’t even begin to comprehend. The thought of things irrevocably changing is hard to swallow. For now anyway, when he is already miserable. At other times, when he is happy, he feels only love, excitement and pride.  
  
Jiyong tenses with frustration at Seunghyun sending his mind back into dark places. What exactly was his motive upstairs? To get him to admit his feelings? To what end? Seunghyun knows as well as he does that it’s a moot point. He knows it’s not fixable, that every cruel thing he said upstairs is true. Why force it into the open? Why make him _say_ it? Why act that way? Like a petulant, forceful child? And how did it escalate so quickly?  
  
One moment, Seunghyun is folding clothes. The next, he is purposely trying to hurt him. Why? It’s inexplicable. Jiyong can’t make sense of it. They’ve learned to _communicate_ with each other so they rarely fight. What just happened unsettles him.  
  
They obviously have to talk to each other but he isn’t ready to go back upstairs. Anger and frustration ripple through him in uncomfortable waves, flaring up and receding before flaring up again. He is tense and anxious. His fingers shake. He needs to calm down.  
  
Of course, Seunghyun has other plans. He materialises in the doorway fifteen minutes later with an unreadable look on his face. Their eyes meet and Jiyong shrugs, unable to say whatever he needs to say. Right in this moment, he is angry. He can’t speak first. This whole thing has taken him by surprise.  
  
They stare at each other for a while until Seunghyun breaks the silence with a few subdued words.  
  
‘I love you.’  
  
Jiyong’s jaw clenches and he feels a sting behind his eyes. He tightens his fists in his pockets but says the truth regardless.  
  
‘I love you too.’  
  
Seunghyun stares at his feet for a moment and slips a hand into his pocket.  
  
‘I want you to have a family,’ he says.  
  
Jiyong shakes his head in disbelief because Seunghyun has to know better than this, even if today has put a crack in an otherwise perfect veneer.  
  
‘You _are_ my family,’ he says emotionally. ‘One disappointment out of our control doesn’t change that.’  
  
‘It’s a pretty big disappointment though.’  
  
‘So what? What do you want me to do?’ Jiyong shrugs heatedly. ‘Should I leave you?’  
  
Seunghyun doesn’t answer and Jiyong scoffs, annoyed by his silence.  
  
‘I’m not _leaving_ you, Seunghyun. I’m _sorry_ ,’ he says, voice breaking, ‘If I said something that upset you. Last week, I said things you were never meant to hear. ‘ _Yes_ ,’ he says, throwing his arms up. ‘I want kids. You know I do. We both know it won’t happen. I _accept_ that, okay? I’ve been blessed in so many other ways, I’m keenly fucking aware that I don’t get to have _everything_. That’s okay. It has to be.’  
  
Seunghyun looks at the ground between them, listening but unable to maintain eye contact.  
  
‘I can’t promise you that I won’t have moments,’ Jiyong says honestly, ‘or that I won’t get upset tomorrow or next week or five years from now. All I can tell you is that it won’t change anything between us, because I love you. I will always choose you, Seunghyun. Always. Hurting me on purpose won’t change that. _You_ are my family,’ he says slowly, ‘and our family doesn’t have to be more than you and me.’  
  
Seunghyun looks up and they make eye contact. For a moment, it is like they are back on the same wavelength. Jiyong sees Seunghyun’s own fears and concerns and he _understands._ Seunghyun smiles. At first it is full of love and gratitude. Then, it morphs quickly into something else. Something like resignation. Seunghyun pulls his hand out of his pocket, his car keys between his fingers. He gestures between them.  
  
‘Yes it does,’ he says. ‘It has to be more than this.’  
  
Without another word, he walks out of the greenhouse. Jiyong hears the keys in his hand and it takes a moment for his brain to process what that means. By the time he gets his shit together and follows him, the garage door is opening and Seunghyun is throwing a bag into the backseat of his car.  
  
‘What are you doing?’ Jiyong asks, frustrated. ‘Where are you going?’  
  
‘Seoul’.  
  
_‘What?’_  
  
Seunghyun gets into the driver’s seat and closes the car door. Jiyong watches him, stunned, rooted to the floor. He should say something but he can’t. The words don’t form in his head. The scene happening in front of him makes so little sense, he literally can’t process it fast enough. Seunghyun lowers the window down halfway, does his seatbelt up, starts the car and says a few inexplicable words before he backs out of the garage.  
  
‘There’s something I have to do.’  
  
Jiyong watches Seunghyun back out of the driveway and disappear promptly down the street out of sight. Jiyong doesn’t move. The cold wind blows in through the open garage door and out of abject confusion, he sits down. He sits with his legs splayed beneath him on the concrete, staring at the last place he saw Seunghyun’s car. Seunghyun’s car which is now on its way to Seoul for reasons he doesn’t understand.  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
For an hour or two, Jiyong moves through the house in shock. No part of the day makes sense to him. It’s hard to wrap his head around Seunghyun leaving, let alone the reasons he may have done it. Things have been okay since Jung-jin left, apart from a feeling that they were both holding something back. And this was the root of it? A conversation about their future? About kids?  
  
Seunghyun said they had to _talk_ about it. He implied the whole thing was overdue. So, what? Are they finished? The conversation is over? It must be for Seunghyun to leave the house and drive all the way to Seoul. Jiyong told him to forget about it, that one unfortunate problem won’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things. What else could he say? He wasn’t lying. So where has Seunghyun gone? _Why?  
_  
For a while, he doesn’t even try to make sense of it. He tries to follow his usual routine. He tries to paint but can’t. He tries to write but can’t. He tries to eat but can’t. Hours pass before he sits on the couch in the fading light and feels an anxious hole in the pit of his stomach. Seunghyun hasn’t walked out on him in _years._ He hasn’t been that _horrible_ in years. Unrecognisable, almost a completely different person.  
  
Jiyong runs over their conversation again and again. He tries to remember everything he said, everything Seunghyun said. He tries to understand Seunghyun’s behaviour. He tries to pinpoint the moment Seunghyun would have wanted to leave--- but he doesn’t find it. Did he miss something? Was there more to the conversation than he realised? Some underlying thing he couldn’t see because Seunghyun caught him off-guard?  
  
_‘Our family doesn’t need to be more than you and me’.  
  
‘Yes it does’.  
_  
What does _that_ mean?

  
For a brief moment of sheer panic, a voice in the back of Jiyong’s head asks a question he hasn’t asked himself in years. Does Seunghyun want out? Does he want this relationship to end while there’s still time? Is he trying to bail out before they hit a fucking iceberg? Couples have fallen apart over this before. It’s not impossible.  
  
Jiyong buries his face in his hands and physically shakes his head in the darkening room. No. Seunghyun wouldn’t do that. They’ve been together too long. He knows him _better_ than that. Doesn’t he? He tries to call Seunghyun a dozen times but each call goes straight to voicemail. Wherever Seunghyun is, he has his phone turned off.  
  
After another hour of sitting in the dark, riling himself up to no end, and another failed attempt to call Seunghyun, Jiyong goes upstairs defeated. He falls into bed with his clothes still on and pulls the blankets up around his chin. The last few hours have worn him out but he can’t sleep. Seunghyun’s voice starts ringing in his ears. He relives their conversation over and over again. He hears Seunghyun tell him he’ll never have kids--- that he’ll never have children who love him, that he’ll never know that love himself. What a fucking horrible thing to say. Staring out the glass doors to the balcony, a tear rolls down his cheek onto the pillow. Why would Seunghyun say that? Even if it was true? Why would he _do_ that?  
  
Jiyong looks into the dark corner of their bedroom and in his tiredness, scenes illuminate themselves in his minds eye. He imagines a crib in the corner. What would it be like to lay in this bed watching a baby fall asleep, listening to the sounds it makes, watching its little hands make fists in the air? When it grew older, would they still be living in this house? Jiyong pictures a child of three or four with their back to him, holding onto the railing of the balcony, looking down onto the driveway. What would it be like to watch his own child wave goodbye to Seunghyun as he leaves for work?  
  
A stream of future moments roll through his head. Carrying a child on his shoulders, feeling their fingers pull his hair. Bath-times. Dinners. Cleaning food off the walls. Wiping pencil marks off the furniture. Dressing them in the mornings. Reading to them at night. Answering their endless questions. Laughing with them. Loving them. Seeing them off on their first day of school.  
  
All these moments appear and disappear in his mind like windows to another life. The way he imagined life here in Inje before he ever thought it was possible, he allows his toe to dip below the water of this fantasy too. Except this one genuinely isn’t possible. Lying alone in the dark, allowing himself to think about children, _really_ think about them, he understands that in a way he never has before. He can’t have it. It was one thing to tell Seunghyun he accepted the loss, but to really _mean_ it? His heart breaks. Tears stream silently down his face in the dark. For the first time in his life, he really understands what it _means_ to never have children. To accept everything Seunghyun said to him as fact.  
  
His silent tears become vocal and he buries his face in the pillow and cries his eyes out. He lets himself feel the fucking heartbreak and the unfairness. It is a problem. It is a problem. It _is_ a problem.

When he has no tears left to cry, he rolls over and faces Seunghyun’s empty side of the bed. Is this what Seunghyun wanted? To kill that last piece of hope in his heart so he could _really_ accept it? So he could move on or something? The ache of longing is gone but there is something else there now. Some little emptiness instead. Is that better?  
  
Jiyong imagines a life at seventy with no visitors, nobody checking up on him, nobody to remember him when he’s gone. There is his sister of course, and her children. Youngbae’s children too. Should he become a more integral part of their lives? Live vicariously through them and their experiences? Or is that tragic? He doesn’t want to be forgotten. Not in an egotistical way. He just wants company and affection. The thought of not having it at the end of his life when he’ll need it most frightens him.  
  
He pulls Seunghyun’s pillow into his chest and buries his face in it, inhaling deeply. It smells like him. It’s a comfort, really. Even now. When he _seriously_ thinks about growing older, it’s not usually fear that he experiences. It’s gratitude and comfort because Seunghyun is always in those imaginings. In his gut, he knows they will stay together. He knows they will last. When he is old and grey, Seunghyun will _be_ there. What’s wrong with that?  
  
Seunghyun asked if he could handle a future where the two of them are still alone together just as they are now. As heartbreaking as it will be to never have children, that’s a price Jiyong is willing to pay to have Seunghyun in his life. It’s a difficult trade but he wouldn’t change it. There is nothing miserable about their life at seventy being exactly as it is now because human worries aside, he _is_ happy. For as long as they are together, he will continue to be happy. And that’s the end of it.  
  
Seunghyun makes him laugh every day of his life. Nobody on Earth knows him so well, and when Seunghyun _doesn’t_ get him, he tries to. He puts so much into their relationship and always has. Seunghyun is always the first person he wants to call with news. The first person he talks to when he has a problem. Sometimes, just seeing his face in the morning makes Jiyong smile and swell with love, and they have been together for fifteen years. After all that time, he still feels that way when he looks at him. How many people can say that? How many people have what he has? Maybe life is unfair in some ways, but he is lucky in others.  
  
He and Seunghyun have to talk to each other. He has to make sure he knows that. That they can have a good life together without kids. He’s always _known_ that. Seunghyun has to know too.

 

  
* * *  
  
  
  
  
When Jiyong wakes in the morning, he pats around the mattress for his phone and finds there are no missed calls. Seunghyun hasn’t tried to get in touch. Without thinking about it, Jiyong dials his number and wipes the sleep from his eyes. It goes to voicemail again. His phone is still off.  
  
Is Seunghyun coming home today? Will he walk in the door with an explanation or as if nothing happened? What if he _doesn’t_ come home? The thought makes Jiyong grimace. He can’t stand days of this limbo. He just wants to fix this. He drags himself into the shower and makes a vague threat to the powers that be--- if Seunghyun hasn’t contacted him by three o’clock, he’ll get in the car and go find him himself.  
  
At twelve, Jiyong’s phone vibrates across the kitchen counter and he skips down the stairs two at a time to reach it. There is a text message from Seunghyun. Brief is an understatement.  
  
_‘I’m okay,’_ Jiyong reads aloud. ‘That’s it?’  
  
He stares at the message in his hands and shakes himself out of his stupor. He dials Seunghyun’s number and it finally rings but Seunghyun doesn’t pick up. His answering machine message eventually clicks on. Jiyong doesn’t leave a message.  
  
_‘I’m okay,’_ Jiyong says again, frowning. ‘That’s ….’ he trails off and sighs.  
  
If Seunghyun was okay, he’d be at home. If Seunghyun was okay, he wouldn’t feel the need to send a message saying so. Nothing _feels_ okay. Until Jiyong can talk to him, it isn’t okay. Seunghyun walked out on him without an explanation and he didn’t come home. He turned his phone off. He won’t answer. Is that okay? One of the last things Seunghyun did was say putrid things like a heartless asshole and Jiyong wants an apology first of all, and then to ask him why because Seunghyun is _not_ okay. A normal Seunghyun wouldn’t do that.  
  
Jiyong makes himself something to eat, lethargic, but he only eats a quarter. He is hungry but it feels like a chore and his mind is a thousand miles away. Or maybe just 70 miles away, in Seoul. After washing up, he imitates Seunghyun’s escape and throws a few things in a bag then gets in the car. He simply can’t wait for Seunghyun to come home. He has to get control of this situation.  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
When he finally drives into the city, he realises he has nowhere to go. He has no idea where Seunghyun is. While caught in traffic, he quickly calls him again but there is no answer. As a force of habit, he drives to Seunghyun’s apartment. He still owns it, it’s just empty. His car isn’t there.  
  
Frustrated by his own impulsiveness, Jiyong thinks about going to his own empty apartment but he doesn’t. What would be the point? He stays where he is and calls his sister. He puts it on speaker and holds onto the wheel to centre himself. In his periphery, Seunghyun’s empty home mocks him.  
  
_‘Hello?’_  
  
‘Dami, it’s me.’  
  
‘I know! How are you?’  
  
In the background, he hears traffic and noise. It’s almost hard to hear her.  
  
‘Where _are_ you?’  
  
‘I’m about to walk into the office. I have to meet a manufacturer in the morning. I have things to prepare.’  
  
Dami has been in Suwon for as long as he has been in Inje, relegated to some distant town for her husband’s temporary work placement. She comes back to the city for work when she can’t do something remotely but the timing is fortuitous.  
  
‘You’re in Seoul? I’m coming over.’  
  
‘When?’  
  
‘Right now. I’m fifteen minutes away. I want to talk.’

  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
Thirty minutes later, he is sitting in his sister’s office, on a benchtop, his legs dangling over the side like he is still fifteen, not edging toward forty. He hasn’t seen her in almost two months. She has changed her hair. It looks good. She ducks out of reach of his wriggling fingers, trying to pat it down.  
  
‘Stop pestering me. What are you doing in the city anyway?’  
  
Jiyong shrugs, suddenly on the fence about talking to her at all. He was never going to tell her about the kid thing. Not for a while anyway. He’s enjoying the fruits of his new openness with his family but some things need to stay private, for now anyway. It would hurt too much to talk about something so real. In a way, it would make him feel humiliated and pitiful. She looks at him with such innocent affection, he feels bad for dumping anything on her. He talks to her on the phone fairly often but Seunghyun probably talks to her more. Their blooming friendship should bother him but it doesn’t.  
  
‘I don’t know. I’m just---’ he trails off, unable to think of a lie fast enough.  
  
She raises her brow in answer and lays a sheet of fabric on a second benchtop in the middle of the room. She draws a pattern onto it and he watches her in silence, comforted just by being here. Seunghyun could be anywhere in the city. In any hotel. With any friend. Anywhere. How was he ever going to find him?  
  
Dami picks up a pair of scissors and speaks without looking at him.  
  
‘Something’s wrong, I can always tell. Just tell me what it is.’  
  
Jiyong rolls his eyes and follows the scissors as she cuts along a line she made. The sound of the blades slicing through the fabric is cathartic in some weird way. He doesn’t want her to stop. The heavy, repetitive sound feels like something concrete. Like something tangible is happening. It’s a nice contrast to him feeling like everything else is in limbo. Cutting something to pieces is _doing_ something.

‘We had a fight,’ Jiyong says simply. ‘He walked out yesterday and didn’t come home. I don’t know where he is.’  
  
Dami pauses and looks up inquiringly.  
  
‘Fought about what?’  
  
‘It’s personal,’ Jiyong answers.  
  
Dami nods knowingly and goes back to cutting, turning the fabric as she goes.  
  
‘Something big then.’  
  
He rolls his eyes again. Maybe they’re too close. The brother-sister mind meld has been tested only too well over the years and it goes both ways. Letting Seunghyun into their closeness should have been a mitigated disaster but remarkably little has come of it so far. They just get along. Seunghyun’s relationship with her has no bearing on his own and vice versa. They haven’t become embroiled in any damaging three-way secrets.  
  
‘It wasn’t even a real fight,’ Jiyong sighs. ‘I don’t know what it was. He heard me say something he shouldn’t have and he took it the wrong way. He asked me about it and it just blew up.’  
  
Dami frowns but she doesn’t answer. Her scissors continue their slow and steady circuit around the pattern. The excess falls away in one long tendril, curling to the floor.  
  
‘He said things that were----’ Jiyong pauses hesitantly, ‘not like him. And I don’t know why. He was horrible. The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. There had to be something more behind it, but I don’t know what. I can’t figure it out. I don’t know where _any_ of it came from or why it happened the way it did.’  
  
‘And you don’t know where he is?’  
  
‘In Seoul somewhere,’ Jiyong waves a hand vaguely. ‘He said he was coming to the city but he could be anywhere. I went to his apartment but his car wasn’t there. He won’t answer his phone.’  
  
‘Why did you follow him? He’s only been gone a day. Give him time to cool off. He could be headed home right now.’  
  
Jiyong sighs, not really believing that.  
  
‘He sent me a message this-morning and all it said was _I’m okay.’  
_  
Dami shrugs.  
  
‘Doesn’t that mean he’s okay?’  
  
‘If he was okay, why would he feel the need to say so? Okay is the default. _I’m okay_ is him overcompensating because something is going on.’  
  
‘Or he just needs some space and wants you to know he’s alive and _okay,_ ’ Dami says pointedly. ‘You’ve done the same thing in the past. It’s not that unusual.’  
  
Jiyong frowns, seeing the point she’s making. Still, something in his gut says that isn’t it because he _knows_ Seunghyun and whenever they’ve had a problem in the past, whenever he disappeared or became withdrawn, Jiyong knew why. This is the first time he doesn’t know. Sure, the kid talk is a big fucking deal but they _barely_ talked and it wasn’t _right_. There was more to it than he could see at the time. Seunghyun was strange and erratic.  
  
‘I _know_ him,’ Jiyong says emphatically. ‘Something’s up. I feel it.’  
  
‘So you followed him to Seoul to confront him?’  
  
‘No. I don’t know.’  
  
Dami finishes cutting and the excess fabric slips silently off the benchtop. She brushes stray threads onto the floor.  
  
‘So where do you think he is? There are a hundred hotels he could be staying in. Any number of friends. Family?’  
  
Jiyong laughs at the thought of Seunghyun staying with his family. His sister maybe, but his parents? His mother? He would go out of his mind having to behave himself, even for one night.  
  
Weeks ago, after Seunghyun’s confession of loneliness, before Jung-jin arrived, Seunghyun said he had doubts about his parents ever accepting him for who he is, and he didn’t wholly mean being gay or in a committed relationship with another man. He meant everything. He said they were hyper critical of him in the past, about his drinking, his hobbies, his friends. His mother only took a step back after his accident but over time, she has become overbearing again. Enough that he feels he can’t be himself around them. Not fully. Not the way he must want to deep down.  
  
‘Use that _find your phone_ app then.’  
  
‘I got a new phone,’ Jiyong explains.  
  
When he first moved to Inje, there were moments he felt isolated from his family. He made everyone put the tracking app on their phones. Scattered all over the country for the first time, he wanted to know where everybody was. For the first two months living there, he kept his cell phone turned off most of the time. He didn’t want to search his own name on the internet or get a bombardment of messages from distant acquaintances about his choice to leave YGE. Still, now and then, late at night, he would turn it on and check the map. He would see where his family were. Despite them living together, he put it on Seunghyun’s phone too. He said it was insurance, in case a crazed fan kidnapped him one day and Jiyong had to save him.  
  
‘You have an account though, right? Just download the app on this phone and log-in’.  
  
Jiyong has no confidence he’ll remember the details, but he downloads the app anyway and tries a few different passwords. On his third try, the app opens and he quickly turns his phone face down on his thigh.  
  
‘Isn’t it wrong to look?’ he asks. ‘Under these circumstances?’  
  
‘That depends,’ Dami says. ‘Do you want to find him so you can yell at him? Or do you want to find him for another reason?’  
  
Jiyong frowns and wonders if he shouldn’t take a minute to think about it. Maybe this feeling in his gut is just his own brain making excuses for his behaviour. Rationalising his choice to follow Seunghyun when he obviously wants to be left alone.  
  
‘I’m worried,’ Jiyong says quietly.  
  
Dami shrugs gently.  
  
‘Well, it’s between you and God,’ she says facetiously, ‘but I think it’s okay to look if your motives are pure.’  
  
Jiyong smiles at her joking candour but it does the trick. He looks at the map. He finds Seunghyun’s name and watches the map shoot past half of Seoul before coming to a stop on a familiar neighbourhood. Jiyong frowns in confusion.  
  
‘He’s at home,’ he says quietly. ‘At his apartment. I just came from there.’  
  
‘You must have just missed him.’  
  
‘But _why_ is he there?’  
  
‘You thought he might be there before.’  
  
Jiyong exhales sharply, frustrated by how little he knows.  
  
‘I just didn’t know where else to look. It was habit maybe.’  
  
‘Maybe that’s why _he’s_ there,’ Dami says. ‘Habit.’ In a smaller voice she mouths, ‘A safe place’.  
  
Jiyong frowns at the thought of Seunghyun needing a safe place to go. Somewhere familiar and comforting, but why else would he be there? The place is empty. Maybe his empty apartment is a surrogate greenhouse. Some place he can think for a while. Jiyong tries calling him again but there’s no answer.  
  
He opens the app again and stares at the pin representing Seunghyun’s phone. _What is he doing there?_ He absent-mindedly scrolls through the settings and finds a history option that wasn’t there a few months ago. When he checks it, the last 48 hours of Seunghyun’s history appears on his screen. All Seunghyun’s unwitting checkpoints. He opens the approximate location of Seunghyun’s last stopped destination and it takes a moment to register where it is and who lives there.  
  
Seunghyun’s parents.  
  
Suddenly, pieces start to come together in his mind, as if it were that easy. As if it were in front of him all along, except without this information he _wouldn’t_ have figured it out. He wouldn’t have been perceptive enough to notice because he has been preoccupied. Seunghyun’s voice rings in his ears, his concerned words about his family. The disappointment when Jung-jin first left and Seunghyun didn’t feel any different. The last thing Seunghyun said to him before he left for Seoul.  
  
_‘Our family doesn’t have to be more than you and me’.  
  
‘Yes, it does.’  
_  
Jiyong’s stomach twinges with anxiety at the sudden realisation and his lips part in recognition.  
  
‘Oh,’ he says quietly. ‘I think I know what he’s doing here.’  
  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
  
Seunghyun doesn’t answer the doorbell when Jiyong first rings. There is a light on inside so the power is on. The bell must work. Seunghyun’s car is in the driveway. He’s here. Jiyong tries the bell three times, waiting a few minutes before he gets tired of loitering like a maniac and he simply punches in the code. As the door opens, it becomes obvious that Seunghyun didn’t hear him. Music is playing from somewhere, down the hall maybe, so loud it almost makes him wince. It sounds old, something from America from the 1950’s or something. A woman is crooning depressing lyrics in English. He catches some of it but not all.  
  
He closes the door behind him and yells out, though he knows it’s probably fruitless. Still, it’s polite to announce your arrival. Seunghyun’s shoes are positioned neatly by the door, a sock in each one, like he took care when taking them off. He didn’t kick them off in a fit of passion. Jiyong doesn’t know whether that’s a good sign or not.  
  
The house is empty except for one armchair in the corner and a lamp. There is a small box at the far side of the living room. It looks surprisingly clean for a house that’s been sitting empty for months on end. Maybe Seunghyun gets a cleaner in periodically to keep the spiders at bay.  
  
There is a light on in Seunghyun’s bedroom so Jiyong makes his way up the hallway, his own shoes placed beside Seunghyun’s. He lets his socks slide against the floorboards. As he nears Seunghyun’s room, the music is unconscionably loud, he wonders how Seunghyun can stand it. Why is he listening to this? So he can’t hear his own thoughts?  
  
Jiyong pokes his head around the corner when he reaches the door. He doesn’t want to startle him. Seunghyun is sprawled across his bed. Jiyong is surprised to see it. He didn’t realise Seunghyun left it here, but it makes sense. This is somewhere for him to stay on his rare trips to the city. Somewhere he can have privacy. Seunghyun has kicked the blankets onto the ground and is laying on the sheet alone, his eyes closed, a cigarette in one limp hand hanging over the edge of the bed.  
  
Jiyong tries to get his attention but can’t make himself heard. He grimaces and gives in, picking up a ball of paper by the door. He throws it onto the bed and it lands gently on Seunghyun’s stomach.  
  
Seunghyun jolts upright like he is waking from a nightmare and though Jiyong can’t hear him, he sort of _can_ hear the enormous groan of frustration and relief when Seunghyun sees him in the doorway. His chest heaves like he’s been scared out of his mind. Seunghyun puts the cigarette in his mouth and stretches to turn the music off. Jiyong sees now, the speaker on the ground.  
  
Silence fills the room but Jiyong hears the echo of the music instead. He could almost feel it in his chest, it was so loud. Seunghyun leans against the wall and crosses his ankles, shaking his head in barely concealed frustration. He takes a drag and exhales like now he _really_ needs a cigarette.  
  
‘You fucking _scared_ me. What the _fuck.’  
_  
Jiyong shrugs, apologetic.  
  
‘I rang the bell for five minutes. When I came in, I yelled out a few times. I even yelled here in the doorway,’ Jiyong says. ‘You couldn’t hear me.’  
  
Seunghyun shakes his head but mirrors Jiyong’s actions almost, shrugging to alleviate his nervous energy.  
  
‘What are you _doing_ here?’  
  
‘What are _you_?’  
  
Seunghyun looks guilty for a moment and his lips part to speak but all that comes out is a depressed sigh. He looks weary, like he just doesn’t have the answers. Maybe coming here really was habit. But that’s not what Jiyong was really asking.  
  
‘You weren’t going to come home today?’ Jiyong asks quietly. ‘It’s getting dark.’  
  
Seunghyun’s curtains are drawn but the sun had almost set when he closed the front door behind him. It must be dark now, or almost. Seunghyun thinks about his answer before speaking.  
  
‘I don’t know.’  
  
Jiyong sighs, wondering if he’s right about all this. If his theory is actually worth something. Did Seunghyun really come here to speak to his parents? Without telling him? Jiyong leans against the wall and bites his lip, unsure how to move the conversation to where it needs to go.  
  
‘I’m sorry,’ Seunghyun says in the meantime, looking cowed suddenly and tired. He shakes his head like he’s disappointed. He takes another drag of his cigarette then stubs it out in the ashtray sitting on the mattress.  
  
‘Sorry for what?’ Jiyong asks.  
  
‘Yesterday.’  
  
Jiyong frowns, not wanting to dwell on it really. He doesn’t want Seunghyun’s words to filter through his mind again. He’s worried that if they do, it will take hours or days for them to leave him.  
  
‘Okay,’ Jiyong answers, shrugging. He can’t say he forgives him because he doesn’t. He can’t say he understands because he doesn’t. He can only acknowledge the words. Seunghyun seems pained by his non-responsiveness. His confrontational attitude from moments earlier is gone now.  
  
‘I shouldn’t have said what I did,’ Seunghyun continues. ‘That was---’  
  
Jiyong closes his eyes for a moment in frustration because Seunghyun’s words come back to him, whether he wants them to or not. He shakes his head and his jaw clenches.  
  
‘Really fucking horrible?’ Jiyong suggests, suddenly annoyed.  
  
‘Yeah. It was … _that_.’  
  
Jiyong shrugs, completely lost. Even with what he thinks he knows about Seunghyun’s coming here, it’s not a reason or an excuse. At least, he is grateful Seunghyun can apologise so easily. There was a time once, when it was harder for them to do this. To talk to each other and admit when they were wrong.  
  
‘So why?’ Jiyong asks. ‘What was the point? I cried myself to sleep, asshole.’  
  
Seunghyun frowns deeper and folds his arms across his chest for protection. It’s a sheepish gesture of discomfort and he deserves it, doesn’t he? A few moments of discomfort are the least he can endure.  
  
‘I don’t know,’ Seunghyun answers honestly. ‘To make sure?’  
  
‘Of what?’  
  
‘That you would still choose us.’  
  
Jiyong scoffs loudly and it isn’t sympathetic. That Seunghyun would say something so cruel to test their relationship? To test his loyalty and his honesty? That’s not the people they’ve become.  
  
‘You know perfectly well how I feel, Seunghyun, without making me feel bad just to make sure. You only had to ask me. I was telling you the truth. You know I was.’  
  
‘You’re right.’  
  
Jiyong sighs, willing to admit he had a part to play in what happened.  
  
‘Look, maybe we should have talked about it sooner but I thought it was pointless. We can’t have kids and I knew we weren’t breaking up just so we could have some,’ Jiyong shrugs. ‘Why talk about it? I figured it would make things worse.’  
  
He pushes off the wall and shuffles a little closer, his socks sliding across the floorboards.  
  
‘I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you first. I didn’t mean to tell your friend how I felt, it just happened. Hyorin’s baby shower and you telling me you were lonely brought up a lot of things I was trying not to think about. Then, all of a sudden there was a stranger with ears sitting in front of me and it all came out.’  
  
Seunghyun nods like he understands.  
  
‘I get it,’ he says.  
  
Jiyong frowns, knowing this still isn’t the end of it. After all, kids weren’t the only things Seunghyun overheard him talking about last week or cruelly threw back in his face yesterday.  
  
‘As for the other stuff I said about us having gone as far as we could?’ Jiyong says. ‘I wasn’t saying we’ve reached our expiry date. I was just complaining that we don’t get to celebrate all the milestones we should. Kids, marriage, yadda yadda. You know I didn’t mean it the way you implied. You didn’t have to---- _attack_ me.’  
  
Seunghyun nods apologetically.  
  
‘I know we’ll always find ways to have a good life together,’ Jiyong says sincerely. ‘And that we’ll create our own milestones. I know we’ll be okay. You know it too.’  
  
Seunghyun smiles faintly. He tilts his head.  
  
‘Just _okay?’  
_  
Jiyong rolls his eyes.  
  
‘I know we’ll be _happy,_ ’ he corrects himself. ‘We’ll have a big, beautiful life. We’ll be lifestyle savants,’ he says dramatically. ‘The next Shakespeare will write a play about us and our wonderful fucking life.’  
  
Seunghyun reaches out. Jiyong takes his hand and sits on the bed beside him. He squeezes Seunghyun’s hand.  
  
‘I really am sorry,’ Seunghyun says. ‘I don’t know where my heads at this week. I don’t know what happened yesterday. I want us to be happy too. I just want us to be a real family.’  
  
Jiyong’s smile falters sympathetically.  
  
‘We _are_ a real family.’  
  
Seunghyun looks down and a miserable cast shadows his face. He takes a deep breath and Jiyong knows what he’s about to say. He strokes Seunghyun’s palm with his thumb and watches the lump in Seunghyun’s throat threaten to choke his words.  
  
‘I _told_ them.’  
  
Jiyong squeezes his hand harder.  
  
‘Your parents?’  
  
Seunghyun laughs quietly, and lifts his head.  
  
‘You know everything already?’  
  
‘I had an idea.’  
  
They both release a sigh at the same time.  
  
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going to _come out_ to your family? _’_ Jiyong asks.  
  
Seunghyun shrugs and he rolls his eyes like he’s blinking back tears. It’s an ominous gesture. He doesn’t look like someone who has just come out and been embraced. It makes Jiyong feel sick because he should have known. Seunghyun should have told him so he could give him the speech he wished someone had given him before he took the chance with his mother and sister. _Whatever happens, you will still be loved. If things don’t go as well as you hope, that can always change. Give it time. Relax. I love you_.  
  
‘What _happened?’_  
  
Seunghyun wriggles his hand free and drags his palms down his face to wake himself up, or as a sign of fatigue. He drags the skin down, making his face look gaunt, until his palms cup his neck and rest there.  
  
‘I thought my mom would be alone,’ he says simply. ‘I went there last night while she was making dinner. I told her I had to talk to her about something important and she asked if it could wait. She asked me to eat with her.’  
  
Jiyong flinches already. What a strange reaction to have. To ask someone to wait---  
  
‘I thought, what difference does it make? I wanted to eat with her one last time in case it didn’t go well,’ Seunghyun says. ‘So, I stood in the kitchen making small talk for a while. And then my Dad walked in,’ he says breathlessly. ‘He wasn’t supposed to be there, but he was.’  
  
Jiyong lays a palm above Seunghyun’s knee and squeezes.  
  
Seunghyun’s father has always been a strange enigma to him. The rest of their families and parents eventually took their fame and longevity in entertainment for what it was. A legitimate career path. Seunghyun’s father always saw it as a stepping-stone to something else. He would ask about investments and savings and question Seunghyun about his assets and what he was doing to build his future. It wasn’t an awful thing to do. He had Seunghyun’s best interests at heart, but Jiyong always felt he was dismissive of their work with BIGBANG. It created this barrier between them that made Seunghyun’s father hard to talk to, and he was hugely private on top of that. So, most of them never saw Seunghyun’s father. Only on very special occasions. He would be respectful and polite but it was always a bit different with him than the others. Or maybe it was just his authority. Seunghyun’s father was a powerful presence. Even Jiyong felt small beside him. His gaze could make you question what you were doing when he looked at you.

Seunghyun is 35 years old and sitting here now, talking about his father, he has the face of a child again. It’s like he’s making himself small to accommodate his father’s conjured image in the room.  
  
‘He said hello,’ Seunghyun continues, ‘the way he always does, with a grunt and a nod. And I got frustrated. I hadn’t seen him in weeks and that’s all he could do? A nod? Even though he always greets me like that, yesterday it _annoyed_ me. Like I was ready for him to disown me already and his nod confirmed it.’

  
Seunghyun’s voice slowly gains energy as he speaks, more angry. Jiyong marvels at the difference between them. When he came out to _his_ parents, he was literally trembling. He was so afraid he could barely talk. He was thinking all the time, ways he could bargain for their love. Seunghyun went in combative to try and protect himself. _If you’re going to disown me, fucking do it. I don’t care_.

 

‘He was helping with dinner in the kitchen,’ Seunghyun continues. ‘I just stood there for a while. He asked me a few questions. Small talk. They mostly spoke to each other. And I don’t know,’ he shrugs. ‘When I was watching them together, I felt embarrassed and angry that neither of them knew who I was. I mean how can they _not_ know?’ Seunghyun asks. _‘Seriously?_ Yes, I’ve hidden it from them, but neither of them have ever asked each other? Neither of them have guessed? They were never going to _ask_ me? Why? Because they didn’t want the answer?’  
  
Jiyong frowns at Seunghyun’s train of thought. That he had gone in there and immediately felt his parents already knew and were ashamed of him. That they had never confronted him because they wanted to live in a happy illusion.  
  
‘I don’t know why,’ Seunghyun says. ‘I just got angrier and angrier. Nobody said a word to me, but I was standing there and my hands started to shake. My eyes stung. I couldn’t remember the last time they had questioned me about a partner. I’m 35 and they’ve stopped asking? I thought I knew why. I thought they knew deep down. They knew but they didn’t want to hear about it. That’s what I thought. So I was angry. It felt like I was going to explode. Like I would _never_ be able to sit them down and explain who I am to them, so I didn’t try,’ he says. ‘I just fucking said it. I _yelled_ it,’ he corrects. ‘From across the counter I just fucking yelled it out _. I’m Gay! I like men._ ’  
  
Jiyong’s lips part in surprise. The similarity to what happened a week earlier with Jung-jin is unmistakeable. Seunghyun, who has always relied on his carefully chosen words to express himself, has done the opposite on the two occasions it really matters.  
  
‘What happened?’ Jiyong asks.  
  
Seunghyun laughs now and throws his head back, his arms falling back into his lap. When they make eye contact again, he shrugs with a smile on his face.  
  
‘I ran away,’ he answers.  
  
‘What do you mean?’  
  
‘I _ran away_. They both turned around when I said it. They _stared_ at me, not saying anything--- and I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t handle whatever was coming next. So I left. I walked out.’  
  
Jiyong shakes his head in disbelief.  
  
‘You just _left? Oh, Seunghyun---'_  
  
‘I know. You don’t have to say it.’  
  
Jiyong squeezes Seunghyun’s leg harder again and brings his other to Seunghyun’s knee, rubbing it gently. He can’t criticize Seunghyun’s choices. He can’t _imagine._ He’ll never be able to put himself in Seunghyun’s shoes. He can only support him after the fact.  
  
‘What happened after that?’  
  
‘I turned my phone off, came back here and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up.’  
  
‘And then?’ Jiyong asks gently.  
  
‘I went back.’  
  
Jiyong holds his breath, waiting for the conclusion, waiting for what really happened when he spoke to them again, except---  
  
‘I didn’t go in. I just sat in my car trying to psych myself up. I turned my phone back on and there was a voicemail from my mother but I couldn’t listen to it,’ he says. ‘Eventually, I just came back here.’  
  
‘You still haven’t listened to her message?’  
  
Seunghyun shakes his head, embarrassed almost. Jiyong wonders if he would have done the same thing if Dami hadn’t been there when he told his mother he was interested in men. He pulls Seunghyun’s hand into his own and squeezes.  
  
‘Do you want _me_ to listen to it?’  
  
Seunghyun’s brow furrows but he eventually shrugs his acquiescence. It’s a safer way of knowing what the future may hold. It is easier for someone else to soften the blow. To be the intermediary.  
  
Jiyong picks Seunghyun’s phone off the floor and checks the voicemail, not thinking about it. If he allows himself to imagine what this message could really _be_ , he would chicken out. He types in the code as quickly as possible so he can’t change his mind.  
  
He keeps Seunghyun’s hand in his but Seunghyun’s head hangs low and his eyes are closed. When the message begins, there is silence at first and then a quiet shuddering breath. A little sigh almost. And then Seunghyun’s mother begins to speak, but it’s not speaking so much as whispering. It’s the high, airy note of someone distressed. She says his name and then asks questions there are no real answers to. _‘Why did you say that? What did you mean? I don’t understand. Why did you leave like that?’_ There are no questions beyond those. How could there be? Seunghyun said five words and left. More than anything, she simply sounds distressed but there’s no telling why. Not exactly. At the end of the brief message she asks Seunghyun to come back. She says _I’m worried._ And that’s it.  
  
Jiyong drops the phone back to the mattress, takes a breath, and squeezes Seunghyun’s hand.  
  
‘It wasn’t horrible,’ he comforts him. ‘She was just confused. I don’t think she’s even thought about you being gay yet. She was asking why you said it and what you meant. Why you left so suddenly. She wants you to go back and talk to her. She said she’s worried about you.’  
  
‘I can’t go back,’ Seunghyun says wearily, opening his eyes. ‘Not tonight.’  
  
‘So we’ll go tomorrow.’  
  
_‘We?’_  
  
Jiyong nods.  
  
‘I won’t go inside with you, but I’ll be there. I’ll stay in the car, just in case.’  
  
Seunghyun closes his eyes and takes a moment.  
  
‘You would do that?’  
  
‘Of course I would.’  
  
Seunghyun squeezes Jiyong’s fingers and frowns.  
  
‘Why couldn’t I talk to them? I’d already said it, why couldn’t I stay?’  
  
‘I don’t know.’  
  
_‘You_ never ran away.’  
  
‘When I told _my_ parents?’ Jiyong asks. He lets out a short, crisp laugh. ‘Seunghyun, it was easier for me. The second I told my mother, Dami smiled at me from across the table. The whole time, she was trying to keep me calm. If she hadn’t been there? I don’t know what I would have done. But even with her there, I fucking cried Seunghyun. I shook so much I could barely talk. I literally sank to my knees and held my mother’s legs because I was so desperate for her to say it was all okay.’  
  
Seunghyun frowns.  
  
‘That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,’ Jiyong says honestly, ‘and that was with everything going pretty damn well. My father was difficult but I already knew I had Dami and Mom’s support so I knew it would be okay in the end. It’s a little different for you.’  
  
He pulls Seunghyun’s hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it.  
  
‘Let me ask you something. Why now?’ he asks. ‘Why did you choose to tell them _now?_ Why not earlier? Or later?’  
  
Seunghyun sighs, looking oblivious. Maybe he doesn’t know, but he thinks about it for a while, genuinely, before speaking.  
  
‘I needed to,’ he answers. ‘When I said I was lonely, it wasn’t just needing someone to talk to. It was needing both of us to have a family. A shared family. A _bigger_ family,’ he says. He’s articulate but he chooses his words carefully. He speaks slowly, with long spaces between his words. ‘Hearing you talk about wanting kids made me think about us and our future. You were right. I don’t think we can live in Inje forever, so isolated. But we could live there for a long time if we had a family who loved us and knew who we were. I _want_ that,’ he says carefully. ‘I want what _you_ have. I want my parents to know who I am. I want them to love me for who I am. It was nice having your parents stay with us. I want my family to visit us too. I want to tell them where I am and what I’m doing with my life. They don’t even know where I _live_ ,’ he says, eyes glistening. ‘Isn’t that crazy? They don’t know me at all. What if they don’t want to?’  
  
Jiyong frowns in sympathy and Seunghyun continues.  
  
‘I was disappointed when Jung-jin left because I wanted to feel _different_. I expected something to change after I told someone I was gay but nothing did. I was happy when he was there, but when he left it felt like nothing had changed. It didn’t feel like our lives were more full. I thought--- what happens if it’s like this forever? If you and I are always alone? Just us and your family? Is that _enough?_ ’ He asks. ‘Yelling at you about kids? I don’t know. Maybe for a second I thought we should get it all over with. If I couldn’t give us a family, why bother going any further?’  
  
Jiyong doesn’t know what to say. He has had moments like that of his own, born from frustration. They’re not real. Seunghyun is basically confessing to the same feelings he accused him of having yesterday. Of worrying about a future where dead ends suddenly present themselves.  
  
‘So you came here,’ Jiyong says.  
  
‘Yeah, because I hadn’t even _tried,’_ Seunghyun answers. ‘I want us to have a bigger family but I haven’t even told my parents I’m gay? How can they be there for us if they don’t know about us? About me? Did I really think telling a friend would be a good enough replacement?’  
  
Jiyong smiles unconsciously at Seunghyun’s words. That his sudden flight to Seoul was born out of a desperate need to make their family larger. It’s touching, really. It puts the last few weeks into perspective. That barely perceptible increase in tension.  
  
‘Jung-jin was the test run,’ Jiyong tells him. ‘And it worked, obviously. You’ve gone straight from the practise to the real thing.’  
  
‘Except I fucked it up.’  
  
Jiyong squeezes his fingers.  
  
‘You didn’t fuck it up. It’s a work in progress.’  
  
Seunghyun flinches at the thought of going back and Jiyong can only imagine.  
  
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,’ Jiyong says honestly. ‘All I can tell you is I’ll be here for you. All you can do is be yourself and tell the truth and know that you will always have a family. _We_ will always be a family.’  
  
Seunghyun shakes his head in tired misery and Jiyong pulls him down into a sleeping position, joining him on the bed. He rests his head on Seunghyun’s shoulder and squeezes his middle. He should give more of a big, inspiring pep talk but he doesn’t know what to say. It’s such a terrifying, unknowable thing. All he can really do is be here.  
  
For a while, they lie on the bed together, staring at the ceiling or the wall. Maybe there’s too much to say. So much so that it’s easier to say nothing at all. Jiyong thinks about his own coming out and all the people he has yet to tell. All the different ways he will have to speak to them individually, one by one for the rest of his life.  
  
After a time, Seunghyun puts a movie on his phone and props it up with a pillow and they watch it together. Jiyong isn’t really focussed on the plot and he only catches the characters words now and then. He isn’t thinking about anything in particular anymore, his mind blank. He is only roused by the sound of a crying baby. On the small screen, a child in a crib cries, it’s little arms and legs kicking in distress. Jiyong feels Seunghyun tense beside him and the feel of it shocks him. A sudden disquieting thought pops into his head.  
  
He turns the movie off and props himself up on his elbow, looking down into Seunghyun’s confused face. He loves this man and yet he’s never asked him. Not for years---  
  
‘Did you want kids?’  
  
Seunghyun’s brow furrows and Jiyong shakes his head in anticipation, continuing.  
  
‘I know we’ve already had this conversation now. We can’t have them. The end. But I’ve never asked you how you felt about it. It’s always about me and how I feel. What about you? Did you want children, Seunghyun? Does it upset you that we can’t have any?’  
  
Seunghyun sighs so deeply, his chest shows it for the long-overdue release it is.  
  
‘Yes,’ he answers honestly. ‘I would have liked to have kids. It--- hurts sometimes. I try not to think about it.’  
  
Jiyong frowns and cups Seunghyun’s face tenderly.  
  
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘I should have asked you.’  
  
Seunghyun smiles and shakes his head like it’s no problem, but it is, of course. It’s a problem they’ll have to deal with together. It’s a stinging pain they are better off sharing. Seunghyun’s timing in coming here is understandable now. Not being able to have a family of their own can be mitigated by expanding the family they already have. By allowing more of the people they love to _know_ them.  
  
Jiyong sinks back to his place on the bed, pressed against Seunghyun’s side.  
  
‘Things will be okay,’ he whispers. ‘I believe that. Whatever happens tomorrow, it will all be okay.’  
  
  
  
  
* * *

 

 

The next morning, Seunghyun is miserable and quiet and Jiyong can’t bring him around but he understands it. Seunghyun’s nervous energy and fear simply take control of him. Jiyong drives him to his parent’s house and parks a few houses down. For a while, they sit in the car together in silence.  
  
Seunghyun’s head is bowed the whole time, hands fidgeting in his lap. His lips move silently, barely perceptible, like he is rehearsing what he wants to say, but Jiyong knows there’s no real way to prepare. You can’t give a pre-made speech. Still, he leaves Seunghyun alone. He doesn’t rush him or bother him. He just sits there and watches him, trying to feed comfort and courage into his mind telepathically.  
  
Maybe it works. After twenty minutes, Seunghyun gives a clipped apology and gets out of the car before Jiyong can say a word. Before he can give him one last comforting reassurance, one last hand squeeze, one last kiss. Anything.  
  
Jiyong turns in his seat and watches Seunghyun walk away from him until he turns left and disappears down the drive to his parent’s home.  
  
_‘Good luck,’_ Jiyong whispers.  
  
Then, he is alone and knowing Seunghyun is with his parents, or one of them at least, _right in this moment_ \--- he feels second-hand anxiety. His palms begin to sweat and his stomach aches. He thinks about his own experience and tries to put himself in Seunghyun’s shoes.  
  
What happens if things don’t go well? What happens if the worst-case scenario happens? The thought makes Jiyong feel sick. The damage to Seunghyun would be unthinkable. For him to finally take this step and be _honest_ , only to be rebuffed? Even if his parents softened over time, it would break him.  
  
Worse still, he wouldn’t know how to help. He wouldn’t know how to fix it or pave over it or even if he should. Not knowing what to do for Seunghyun in that situation frightens him. More so, because it could happen any minute and he isn’t prepared. They have seen each other at their worst and he has already guided Seunghyun through hell on Earth before, but feeling like your own parents don’t love you? What’s worse than that? A parent’s love should be inherent. Feeling like you’re the one exception to an inviolable rule? What alleviates that?  
  
Jiyong wallows in worst-case scenarios for so long, he doesn’t notice time drifting on. He gets lost in morbid daydreams. Before he knows it, an hour has passed and Seunghyun is still M.I.A. That has to be a good sign, surely. An awful fight would have seen his father kick his ass out the door in the first ten minutes.  
  
Jiyong hopes for the best and pulls his legs onto the seat, curling into a comfortable ball. He forces himself to imagine better scenarios. How much will Seunghyun’s life improve with a family who _understands_ him? How will they feel knowing he is loved and cared for? That he hasn’t been alone all these years? It’s only now that Jiyong realises coming out means revealing their relationship.  
  
He shudders at the thought of Seunghyun’s father eyeballing him, scrutinising everything about him, judging his worthiness to be attached to the venerable Choi’s. It’s a dramatic fantasy but it’s harrowing anyway. Seunghyun’s father is intimidating. What will their first interaction be like, when everything is out in the open?  
  
_Hello sir, I’ve been fucking your son for fifteen years!_  
  
He grimaces and thinks about Seunghyun’s mother instead. He knows she worried early on. How could she not? From her perspective, Seunghyun was allergic to relationships, isolated himself from everyone, drank too much, liked weird stuff and his depression got the best of him more than once. That must be a mother’s worst nightmare. Won’t she be happy to get this news? That he’s been in a relationship for fifteen years? That he is happy and _loved?_ That they’ve both grown and evolved and have so far proven themselves immune to break-ups? They are engaged. They are solid. Seunghyun will never be alone. Doesn’t every mother want to hear that? Does it really matter that the person Seunghyun loves is … Kwon Jiyong?

For another hour and a half, Jiyong conjures up hundreds of scenarios in his mind and possibly falls asleep once or twice. He might be sleeping when Seunghyun finally opens the passenger side door and gets in because Jiyong jolts, surprised to see him there so suddenly. It takes a few seconds for his brain to recalibrate. For him to remember where he is and what he’s doing there.  
  
It doesn’t help that Seunghyun is unreadable. He does his seatbelt up and stares out the windshield with an impassive face. He doesn’t look devastated _or_ happy. Jiyong checks the time on his phone, surprised to see Seunghyun has been gone for three hours.  
  
When it becomes apparent Seunghyun isn’t going to say anything, Jiyong does instead.  
  
‘What _happened?_ Are you okay?’  
  
Seunghyun shrugs. He maintains his overall blankness and Jiyong is immediately dragged through an emotional cheese-grater by the sheer frustration this causes. His stomach aches from anxiety. His fingers ache from stress. Seunghyun seems completely unaffected. That can’t be true, obviously. So what happened? What is this?  
  
‘Seunghyun, for the love of God, please tell me what happened. Tell me anything!’  
  
Seunghyun shrugs again and this time his hands rise from his thighs for emphasis before slapping back down above the knee.  
  
‘I don’t know,’ he says calmly. ‘It wasn’t good.’  
  
Jiyong frowns at the implication and reaches out to hold Seunghyun’s bicep. Then Seunghyun continues in the same weird tone.  
  
‘It wasn’t horrible.’  
  
Jiyong frowns from sheer confusion. It wasn’t horrible? That’s great! So what was it? Neutral? A neutral coming-out? Seunghyun finally turns his head and offers _another_ shrug.  
  
‘Sorry. I don’t know how to talk about it right now. They didn’t disown me but--- I don’t know,’ he says, and again, quieter, _‘I don’t know.’_  
  
Jiyong sighs and squeezes Seunghyun’s arm.  
  
‘Well, it’s a start.’  
  
Seunghyun smiles wanly and Jiyong feels terrible for him. Grateful it wasn’t _horrible_ , he can still see how confused and upset and untethered Seunghyun is beneath the surface. Worse still, he knows this won’t be a quick fix. Whatever happened in there won’t get better in a day. It could take real time and prolonged heartache and stress to get to that better place. Jiyong can’t fix this. He can’t speed it up.  
  
‘Sure,’ Seunghyun says. ‘It can only get better from here, right?’  
  
It’s a nice sentiment but it doesn’t sound like Seunghyun believes what he’s saying and that’s the one thing Jiyong _can_ do. He can make him believe it. He pulls Seunghyun’s hand into his own and squeezes his fingers.  
  
‘Whatever happened in there, it _will_ get better. Every day will be a little easier now. I promise you.’ Jiyong pulls Seunghyun’s hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. ‘Not good, not horrible? That’s not a bad place to start. Your parents love you. Things will work out in time.’ Jiyong lets their hands rest entwined on the centre console. ‘I’m proud of you.’  
  
Seunghyun’s eyes glisten and he quickly withdraws his hand, running them both down his face, shaking his head like he can fend off whatever emotion is starting to break through. Jiyong lets him. Seunghyun needs time to decompress before he talks about what happened. He just needs … time. Jiyong can wait a little longer for the details.  
  
‘I just want to leave,’ Seunghyun says, eyes on the windshield again. ‘I want to go home. _Home.’  
  
_‘We can do that.’  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this was so long and not much happened. I'm sorry if you hoped for more with Seunghyun. I glossed over a lot of big moments for him but it felt necessary to set up the last part in this series. If I went into too much detail with his big stuff here then the last part would feel repetitive and lose some of it's importance. I promise the last part has more of Seunghyun's family stuff and that the last part will still be somewhat serious but in a much happier way.
> 
> I also hate saying this but comments are appreciated (unless they're horrible). I want to finish this series before Jiyong gets out and my slack ass needs motivation ;_;


End file.
